Out of Mournhold - Part Two
by celestinaskym
Summary: The brief respite following the defeat of Dagoth Ur on Red Mountain is shattered when the Nerevarine narrowly escapes death at the hands of a Dark Brotherhood assassin for the second time. When Fen and Julan trace the assassin back to Mournhold, they begin to unravel a deadly political plot and find themselves entangled at its heart.
1. Chapter 1

The streets of the Great Bazaar were alive with colour and noise. Ropes of bright flags were strung from lamp to lamp, trees were wrapped in vibrant paper, and lanterns with different coloured glass threw circles of red and gold and blue light onto the cobbles below. A thick string of people shifted slowly up and down the narrow paths between street shops, their excited voices rising high into the night air. They were all dressed in clothes that varied from dazzling splendour to thin rags – all manner of people moved throughout the festival, including a man in a dark cloak that pushed impatiently through the crowds.

Celebrators shoved free brandy in his direction, and he ignored them, moving steadily onward through clouds of fragrant incense, magicians shooting fire spells high into the dark sky, musicians playing clashing sonatas from their respective street corners, children setting off firecrackers in the streets and running away as they sputtered and popped. The man passed by an ale cart offering free beer, the outdoor theatre a troupe of Bosmer acrobats were twisting and leaping into the air, a plump fellow gripping a handful of leashes that were attached to a group of domestic scribs. One of the scribs jumped excitedly at the man's cloak as he passed and pulled at it, and he impatiently kicked the creature away and continued.

Soon the man had reached the outskirts of the Bazaar, where there was less light and the narrow alleys between buildings were thrown into shadow and whores lingered against the buildings, their robes slipped down off one shoulder to lure customers. The noise deadened as the man steadily made his way down a narrow pass between two tall houses, into the freezing night air, past the prostitutes that tempted him with seductive calls in sultry voices. He took no notice, but rather made a sharp turn to the left and found himself in the wide, dark street that was separated from the sheer walls of the city by a canal whose icy water lapped quietly against the stone barriers. A squat Dunmer man with a dagger on his belt leaned over the edge of the banister, checking a dented gold pocketwatch and looking increasingly agitated.

"Vules." The Dunmer jumped and the pocketwatch slipped from his grasp, landing in the freezing water below with a solid _plunk_.

"My lord," Vules said in an oily voice that dripped with irritation. "I thought you would not come. It is nearly eleven."

"I would remind you, Vules, that it was _your _idea to meet on the night of the New Life Festival," the cloaked man replied shortly.

"Of – of course my lord. I apologize. The Festival has never been this crowded before. The people are still excited over the end of the Blight in Vvardenfell, of the fall of Dagoth Ur. This is the first new year without worry that they have had in many years."

"I don't care," replied the other tersely. "All I care is that I'm paying your…_agency_ well for this service. And it had better be done right this time."

"It will, serjo," Vules assured him. "That last incident – very embarrassing, serjo, the first time we have ever failed a contract." A hand lashed out from under the dark cloak, seizing the front of Vules's shirt and pulling him close. Vules could smell the wine on the man's breath, sweet and expensive.

"If the count goes up to two, I will hold you personally responsible. Do you understand?"

"Y – Yes, serjo. It will be finished by sunrise."

"Good." The man shoved Vules roughly away, then reached into his cloak and withdrew a small sack. "There is my payment," he said, tossing it to Vules, who caught it quickly against his chest. "Contact me when the job is done."

"Yes, serjo. Of course." The cloaked man did not reply, but turned sharply and walked away, leaving Vules standing alone in the chill air clutching the sack of coins, the distant sounds of the festival dulled in the dark silence.


	2. Chapter 2

Far away from the brightness and noise of Mournhold, the New Life Festival in Caldera was being celebrated in a similar fashion. Lights were strung across all the houses, people danced and laughed in the chill of the streets, and the doors of the local tavern were thrown open invitingly despite the cold. The cacophony of sound was dulled, however, inside the dimmed front room of a modest manor just inside the city, where a young Dunmer woman sat before the fire with her legs curled under her, a book open in her lap. Her eyes, however, were closed, the book unread, her head leaning against the wing of her armchair. The tea on the table beside her was undrunk, long grown cold, and the fire in the grate burned low. There was a general silence throughout the house, only permeated when a loud bang issued from outside, followed by several people cheering.

The woman's eyes snapped open at this noise and she tensed suddenly, then relaxed upon realizing that she was far away from where her dream had been taking her – back to that endless climb through dust and ash beneath a blood-red sky. But the skies over Vvardenfell had been clear for nearly three months now, and that day was far behind her. Still…

Fen reluctantly stood, shivering as her bare feet touched the cold wood floor. Abandoning the book on her chair, she climbed a short flight of stairs to the second story of the house, pulling her dressing gown tightly around herself. In the small room that served as her study, the desk and tables were heaped with grants that needed reviewing, reports that needed signing, letters that needed reading. Just looking at the messy clutter of parchment made her eyes ache. She negligently turned her back on her work and continued into her bedroom, where the canopy bed with its thick ivory duvet beckoned temptingly. But Fen went straight to a solid-looking oak chest beneath the window, which opened with a key she kept in her pocket. She reached inside and pulled back the rectangular cover of guarhide that covered the objects there.

And there they were – an ornate brass gauntlet, a long dagger with a crystal blade, and a small black-and-gold hammer. Sitting on the floor of the chest tucked into the hide, as undisturbed as they had been since Fen had first put them there.

She closed the lid of the trunk with a sigh. She was restless, that was all. Her days had been completely consumed by work lately – she had barely been managing to balance her duties with the guild and her duties to Morrowind. When she and Julan Kaushibael had cleaned the last reported Sixth House base in Vvardenfell, she figured her life would belong to her again, that she would have time to study her own queries. But she had immediately been swept into a whirlwind of responsibility, and these days there was barely time to stop and breathe.

It was frustrating. Fen was certainly glad that her long journey to end Dagoth Ur's reign was over, but she found herself irritated with the monotony her life had adopted, an endless flow of letters and documents and referrals that only added steadily to her workload. She found herself, strangely, longing for the days of walking through the quiet Ashlands with Julan, always with a goal in mind. Now, there was no perceivable end to her duties.

She turned around and leaned against the chest, staring out the window in the study, where fireworks flew up from the streets and exploded, accompanied by cheers and joyful cries of the people that gathered in the streets for the New Life festival. Fen touched the locket at her throat, feeling the tick of the clock enclosed beneath the fine silver. How long had it been now, since she had seen her grandmother? _Over a year, _Fen thought, running a callused finger along the curve of the locket. _I've been in Vvardenfell for that long._

Exhausted, Fen let her head nod back against the chest and allowed her eyes to close.

Fen's room was freezing. She opened her eyes groggily, still feeling sleep-deprived. It was dark – the candles were all hard and still. The unbearable chill seemed to be seeping up the stairs from the main level of the house. Outside, everything was quiet. The Festival had long been over.

Fen slowly got to her feet, shooting a glance out the window. If anything, her time in Vvardenfell had taught her that an interrupted sleep should never be dealt with lightly, and she silently picked up a silver dagger from the top of her dresser and slipped the Amulet of Shadows over her neck. Her feet padded silently on the icy wood floors as she crept down the stairs and peered around the corner into the dark entrance room. The front door was wide open, which showed the source of the cold. The entrance room appeared vacant, but Fen did not move from her position, watching carefully for movement.

There – a bit of shadow by the cold grate, picking through the ashes as if to see when there had last been a fire there. The shadow stood, briefly examined Fen's cold tea on the table, then started to move quietly toward the staircase where Fen hid. She ducked out of the way, pushing herself up against the wall while the intruder passed within centimeters of her. She followed the person – guessing from their height she guessed it was a man – up the stairs, the dagger tight in her grip. The man seemed to know exactly where he was going – he passed silently through the study and into her bedroom, where her bed was neatly made and untouched. Here he paused, staring at the bed, and Fen took his momentary impediment as her cue to act.

She took several steps back and fired a moderately powerful fire spell, which lit up the room as it hurtled toward the intruder. He gasped, stumbling backward into her bedpost. He reached for something on his belt – it hissed through the air towards her, sharp and glinting in the moonlight that poured in from the window. Fen ducked – she felt the throwing star cut through the air above her, embed itself with a solid _thunk _in the wall. She threw another fire spell, suddenly aware that her Amulet of Shadows had slipped off somehow and she was fully visible.

The assassin drew a dagger and smoothly crossed the room towards her. Fen sidestepped, casting a simple drain health spell. He dropped to the floor before it hit him, rolled effortlessly to one side, and leapt up again, far more graceful than he had been initially. She didn't want to use a spell like God's Fire that would let off a blast that would engulf the whole room, but the assassin was moving quickly and she didn't have much time to think. Hastily positioning herself by the stairwell, Fen mustered her energy and shot God's Fire at him, immediately dropping to the ground and rolling down the stairs before the backlash from the spell could reach her. She mumbled a quick resist fire spell and curled up at the bottom of the stairs, ducking her head as the heat roared over her.

When it subsided, she hastened up and climbed the stairs again. Her bedroom was a mess – the walls were scorched and most of the furniture had been reduced to ash. The entire back of the room was gone its remaining edges being licked by flames, jaggedly blasted away from the rest of the house, letting the bitter cold envelop the room. The assassin was nowhere to be seen.

Fen quickly crossed the room to the opening – it looked like he had tried to escape through the window, but hadn't made it far – a black-clothed figure lay immobile on the street among bits of charred wood and glass.

Fen hurried downstairs and outside, tying her dressing gown shut as she went around the house to where the assassin had fallen. She seized his helmet and pulled it roughly off, revealing a middle-aged Dunmer man with a thick, dark beard. He was still alive, though barely breathing.

"Who are you?" Fen demanded. The man stared blankly up at her. "Who sent you to kill me?" He did not answer, but his eyes slowly closed and his breathing stilled.

"Is there a problem here?" Fen turned, thinking it was a stupid question when one considered the fact that the ground was littered with debris and half the house above them had been blasted away. Three guards had appeared in the street. One had his bow out. "Someone reported loud noises coming from inside," one said, and Fen stood, still holding the helmet.

"This man attacked me," she said. "I've taken care of it." Tucking the helm under her arm, Fen passed the guards and went back inside, shutting her door firmly. She lit a fire in the grate and sat down before it, examining the helmet carefully. It wasn't the first time she had seen it. Ages ago, when she was an Evoker in the guild, she had been assaulted on her way to Maar Gan by a man wearing similar garb.

Fen closed her eyes. The Dark Brotherhood. That was what they had told her last time. The guard had told her to go to Mournhold to sort everything out, and Effe-Tei had sent her right back to Vvardenfell. But now she had been attacked again, and she had a feeling that whoever was trying to kill her would be more persistent than they had been last time. Abandoning the helmet on her chair, Fen climbed the stairs to try and repair her bedroom as best she could.

After only one hour of uncomfortable sleep in the spare bedroom, Fen dressed and made herself a cup of tea. While the water boiled, she went to her wardrobe and unearthed the battered leather shoulder bag she had used for nearly all of last year. It still carried a few spoiled potions and several dusty scraps of paper, as well as a pocket-sized copy of _Azura and the Box._ Fen pulled the book out of the bag, realizing that she had taken it from her first closet-sized room in Balmora and forgotten about it. As she started to flip through it, she found something bulky tucked into the front cover – it was a thick envelope, folded once and shoved roughly inside the book.

Curiously, Fen unfolded the letter. The broken red seal bore her family's crest, and she suddenly knew what it was. The letter from Helseth, the last correspondence she had had with her father. She must have shut it in the book after she read it. _Almost a year ago,_ she thought to herself.

Fen set the book aside and threw out the spoiled potions, replacing them with several fresh ones. She carried the bag downstairs and drank her tea quickly, finding a few spare loaves of bread and her old water skin. The old bag felt comfortable on her shoulder, and she smiled slightly at its familiar weight as she left the house, locking it with a key from her pocket. Caldera was still very quiet – most people were still asleep, recovering from the free ale of the New Life Festival. Fen went up the main road toward the guildhall, pulling her cloak more tightly around herself.

"Good morning, Arch-Mage," Folms Mirel, the local alchemist said as she entered, pausing in his task of sorting raw ingredients into jars at the front table. "This is rather early for you."

"I'm not going into Vivec today," she told him, feeling gleeful at merely saying the words. She reached into her cloak and drew out a small, oblong blue stone. "I need to go to Indoranyon," she said, handing the Master Propylon Index to him. "If it isn't too much trouble."

"Certainly, Arch-Mage," Folms said, setting down the frost salts he had been weighing. Fen reached into her cloak again and took out a letter, which she had written the night before.

"And when the apprentices arrive, would you have one of them take this to Skink in Sadrith Mora?" Folms nodded and Fen set it on the table. "Thank you. Are you ready?"

"Yes, Arch-Mage." Folms activated the Master Index in his right hand and reached out to Fen with his left. She took it, and Folms spoke a terse command. Then Fen dropped away from the Caldera guildhall, surrounded by blackness and motion. Seconds later, she was standing on the Propylon platform in the ancient Dunmer stronghold of Indoranyon. The vivid pink lights from the large pylons around her danced around the ceiling, casting irregular shadows upon the stone floor. Fen stepped off the platform and headed for the door.

The Grazelands hadn't changed since Fen had last been there. The low, scrub-like trees and the waving, frost-coated grasses looked no different, even in the pale, early-morning light. Fen descended the stairs of the stronghold to the ground, and she quickly found the hard-packed dirt road and started north, feeling her heart swell with the familiar excitement of having a destination.

Only an hour passed before she arrived at Vos, the small Telvanni settlement on the coast. Fen went straight through and continued along the shoreline as the sun rose higher, reveling in walking the familiar path again. Soon she was climbing a hill, slipping on the wet grass, her breath short with the effort. As she came up over the crest of the hill, she saw the Ahemmusa camp spread out in the valley before her, with a few more yurts and guar, but otherwise unchanged.

The Ashlanders, it seemed, did not celebrate the New Life Festival, for many of them were already up and about, carrying baskets of fur, tanning hides, scrubbing clay dishes at a barrel of soapy water. As Fen entered the camp, three small children rushed toward her, tugging on her cloak excitedly.

"Uranabi!" Fen said, kneeling down so she was eye-level with them. "Teshpu! Mubdin! Look at how big you've all gotten!"

"It's only been three months, Fen!" Uranabi said brightly. "You haven't come to visit us at all."

"I'm visiting now, aren't I?" Fen replied, distracted, as she stood up. "Do any of you know where – ?"

"_Fen!_" Fen was suddenly knocked sideways as someone collided with her, sending her sprawling to the ground.

"Sh – Shani?" Fen gasped, winded, as the children giggled. The woman who had bowled her over grabbed Fen's cloak and pulled her upright, beaming. Shani looked just the same, her shaggy red hair amiss around her face, her eyes bright.

"Gods, Fen, it's been ages!" Shani said brightly, grabbing Fen's hands. "We could have used a visit."

"I've been renting a house in Caldera for a bit," Fen replied. "And I've been busy," she added, brushing dust off her cloak.

"With what?"

"Well, someone tried to kill me yesterday," Fen said nonchalantly. Shani's eyes widened.

"Go away," she said quickly to the three children behind them, and they shuffled off. "Are you serious?"

"I'm fine. But that's kind of why I'm here." Shani grinned.

"No time for idle visits to the Grazelands, hmm? There always has to be a reason."

"I would visit all the time if it meant I could get away from the guild for a while," Fen told her with a sigh. "I've been buried in work since Sun's Dusk. Do you know where – ?"

"Where Julan is?" Shani finished, and Fen nodded. "He'll be in his yurt," she told Fen with a small smirk. "Come on, I'll take you."

Fen followed Shani through the camp, occasionally stopping as the Ahemmusa approached them and greeted her eagerly. The Ashlanders were easily the ones that had most benefitted from the return of the Nerevarine, and they were as grateful to Fen now as they had been three months ago. Shani and Fen ducked under the awning that marked the yurts belonging to the ashkhan and his gulakahns, and Shani went straight to the yurt in the middle, sweeping aside the flap and slipping inside, Fen right behind her.

The yurt was dark, the fire extinguished. A Dunmer man about Fen's age slept spread-eagle on a bedroll near the back, snoring loudly, an empty mazte bottle in his limp hand and his dark hair disheveled. Shani went straight over and kicked him in the side.

"Julan!" she shouted, and he snorted once. Shani kicked him again and his eyes opened blearily.

"Shani…? What the hell…?"

"Fen's here," she said simply, pointing. Julan sat upright and his eyes widened.

"Fen!" he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes. He stood and stumbled into a table. "Ouch…I should move that."

"Julan spent all night in Vos at the New Life Festival," Shani said brightly, and Julan glared at her.

"You were there too," he grumbled, roughly shoving the table out of the way.

"Yes, but _I _didn't get thrown out for breaking four chairs. And I didn't try to get back in by wrapping seaweed around my face and saying it was a beard." Julan's face flushed.

"Go away, Shani," he said tersely, and she smirked and ducked out of the yurt.

"Been keeping busy, I see," Fen said after a moment as Julan rubbed his head, watching her through bleary eyes.

"I have," he said defensively, crossing his arms. Fen raised one eyebrow. "Well…kind of." He glanced around the yurt, which was in a state of disarray. "Being the ashkhan is just…a lot different from what I'm used to." Fen felt sudden relief at the fact that Julan was feeling the same way.

"Then I have a proposition for you," she told him. Julan looked at her warily and she cleared her throat. "Come to Mournhold with me." There was a brief pause.

"But Fen…" Julan said slowly. "Your father…"

"It's been over a year," she replied hastily. "I think I'll be safe there by now. And there's some business there that I'd like to clear up sooner rather than later."

"What business?"

"The Dark Brotherhood attacked me for the second time last night." Julan frowned.

"When was the first time?"

"Oh, it was ages ago. Before I met you. But I'd still like to do something about it. I completely incinerated my bedroom fighting the last assassin." She paused. "And I want you to go with me." Julan sighed heavily.

"Fen, I want to. You know I want to. But I can't just go running off anymore. I have responsibilities now. The Ahemmusa depend on me."

"Sinnammu can look over things again, can't she?" Fen said earnestly. "Julan, I really don't want to do this alone. And you're the only other person I would want to take with me. Please."

"Don't _you _have a guild to look after?" Julan replied hotly.

"Are you really going to try and lecture _me_ about responsibility?" Fen snapped irritably. "After you ran away and wallowed in a cave for two days before I hunted you down?"

"I just thought you would understand that I can't go running off on adventures with you anymore, Fen! Being an ashkhan is a lot of work!"

"Oh, yes, I can tell from the way you were passed out with an empty mazte in your hand. Sounds dreadful." Fen turned sharply to lift the tent flap.

"Fen!" She stopped and shot him a look over her shoulder. "I'm not saying…" he faltered and Fen raised one eyebrow. Julan sighed. "These past few months have been driving me insane. The exciting thing I've seen since Frostfall was a talking mudcrab that offered to buy my boots, and I think I was drunk." Fen said nothing. "But…I can't go with you. These people need me."

"Oh, for gods' sake, Julan!" The flap behind Fen flipped open and Shani appeared there. "Just go!"

"Were you eavesdropping?" Julan said quickly, growing red.

"Julan, Sinnammu and I can handle things here if you leave for a bit. Besides, since you and Fen got rid of Dagoth Ur, there's been hardly anything to worry about."

"But…"

"Honestly, Julan, you'd be doing us all a favor." For a moment, Julan just looked back and forth between Fen and Shani. Then he sighed.

"Fine."

"Ha!" Shani said triumphantly, flicking open the flap. "I knew you would!"

"Don't listen at the door this time!" Julan snapped as the flap fell closed.

"It's a bit of a long ride down to Ebonheart," Fen said brightly. "So just let me know when you're ready." Fen ducked out of the yurt and reached into her bag, pulling out a worn ring with a green stone set into it. She hadn't used Julan's telepathy ring in nearly three months, and she felt a sense of satisfaction as she slipped it back onto her finger beneath the curved white gold of Moon-and-Star.


	3. Chapter 3

Fen's feet touched solid ground. She kept her eyes closed, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent of Timsa-Come-By and feeling the sunlight warm her face. Slowly, she looked up, and found herself clasping Julan's hand in one of several Reception Chambers of the Royal Palace of Mournhold. The chamber was empty and quiet, the late evening light filtering in gently from the rippled roseglass windows.

It had not taken them long to reach Ebonheart, and from there it had only been a matter of finding Asciene Rane, the Imperial Court mage, to transport them to the mainland just as Fen had gone all those months ago. Julan was quiet, staring around at the finely sewn tapestries that hung on the tiled walls and looking out-of-place in the elegance of the chamber. Fen let go of his hand and drifted over to the pink roseglass window, staring out at the quiet bustle of the Royal Courtyard, where couriers and pages drifted back and forth around the beech tree that stood in the courtyard's centre. Fen let her eyes wander up to the top of the achingly familiar beech, where its pale green leaves shuddered in a slight breeze and threw dappled shadows down upon the clean-swept cobbles.

"We need to find Effe-Tei," Fen finally said, reluctantly turning her back on the window. "He's the court mage."

"Won't he tell your father that you're here?" Julan asked skeptically.

"Effe-Tei is my friend," Fen told him firmly. "He should be here somewhere." She started toward one of the doors, but Julan caught her arm.

"Fen…I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to go wandering around the palace. Don't you think you'll run into someone that will recognize you?" Fen lowered her hand hesitantly. "Look, let's just go out into the city. It'll be safer for you there than in the palace. And that'll give us a chance to see if anyone knows about you." Fen looked past Julan at the achingly familiar walls of the Reception Chamber, at the door she knew led to a long hall that ended with the Throne Room. The thought of her grandmother being so close made her knees weak.

"You're right," she said finally. "We can go to the inn in Godsreach." She cast one final, longing glance at the welcoming silence of the Reception Chamber, then pushed open the door. And in a second, they were out into the rose-scented air of Mournhold, where the late evening sun warmed the cobbles and tall trees stretched above the city walls.

The Plaza was comprised of several wide cobblestone roads leading from the different districts of the city to a round circle in the center, where an enormous statue of Almalexia battling the Daedric prince Mehrunes Dagon stood on a raised platform over a fountain. Where there were not streets, there were stretches of bright grass and long planters of Timsa-Come-By, occasionally stopped to make room for stone benches. No vendors were allowed in the Plaza and there were no buildings here, so the space acted much like a park. Fen remembered sitting in the window seat in her drawing room, watching as people would sit on the edges of the fountain or spread blankets in the grassy areas to sit.

The air was only the faintest bit chill, and Fen recalled fondly that Mournhold was quick to revert to spring, even this early in the new year. She led the way through idly strolling groups to the tall arch that led into Godsreach.

"This place is a bit extreme, don't you think?" Julan muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the picturesque tranquility of the Plaza.

"I think it's beautiful," Fen said defensively, stepping through the arch into the next district. Godsreach was significantly more bustling than the Plaza, being the central residential district of the city. The apartments and manors were built on raised platforms so that the street was at a lower level than the buildings. Colored paper still hung, somewhat dejectedly, from a few lampposts, remnants of the New Life Festival, but beside that it was awake with a peaceful sort of fervor as people made their way home from the excursions of the day.

"The inn's just up here," Fen said, mounting a small set of stairs up onto the finely paved sidewalk. She had never been inside the Winged Guar, and where Fenara might have quaked at the thought of entering the tavern, Fen walked in with ease. The Winged Guar was pleasantly bustling with people stopping in for a drink before retiring home for the day, though Fen opted to go straight to bed. She gave Julan a few coins for dinner, then shut her door firmly on the noise of the bar, relaxing in the silence.

It was the first night she had slept in Mournhold for months. The plain green walls of her room were far from the tiled splendour of the palace, but they still filled her with a mixture of relief and dread. Relief at being in her city again and dread at not being welcome there. Fen sat down on her bed and examined the elegant twist of Moon-and-Star, the shimmering ring that never left her finger, symbolizing her position as the Nerevarine. She carefully slipped it off her finger, cradling the thin metal band in her palms. With a slight sigh, Fen wrapped Moon-and-Star in a square of burlap and tucked it into her pack. Julan was right – it would be best for both of them if no one recognized her, as Princess Fenara _or _as Lady Fen.

Early the next morning, Fen dressed in an old robe and hung her staff across her shoulders. She roused Julan and he grumpily followed her out into the pale light of Godsreach, where the rest of Mournhold's inhabitants were slowly starting to go about their days.

"We're going to have to find someone to ask _other _than the High Ordinators," Fen murmured as a passing Ordinator glared darkly at her.

"Why do they hate you so much?" Julan asked, bewildered.

"Mournhold's loyalty is divided," Fen explained as they passed under the arch into the Plaza. "The more liberal citizens openly denounce Tribunal worship. The conservative half supports Almalexia and looks down on anyone who doesn't. And the largest group are the people that dislike them both. I have a feeling the Ordinators here know me."

"They wouldn't tell your father, would they?"

"Of course not," Fen said scornfully. "They hate my father. As do a great number of the city. And the rest of Morrowind, come to think of it." They were just starting to cross the wide expanse of the Plaza when Fen heard her name, shouted suddenly across the space.

"Fenara!" She tensed instinctively and turned quickly in time to see a small, round-stomached Imperial man with a load of tufty white hair hurrying towards her. Fen relaxed slightly.

"Hello, Plitinius," she said, smiling despite herself.

"My dear girl, what are you doing in Mournhold again?" he asked excitedly, gripping her hands in his. "We all thought we'd never see you again! And what of these ridiculous rumours of you being the Nerevarine?" Fen glanced nervously around, but they appeared to be out of earshot of the nearest guard.

"I am," she said quietly, and the old man's eyes grew wide. "But Plitinius, you musn't tell anyone at the Palace that I'm here. Not even Grandmother."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Fenara! But might I say, my dear, that I would simply _love _to write your biography when all this messy business with your father is over. Or perhaps a novel? A stage show?"

"I like the idea of my father's conflict with me simply being a trifle in the way of your literature, Plitinius," Fen said wryly, and Plitinius grinned.

"Every conflict is just a hillock to be surmounted! But please, Fenara, do not keep me on my toes! Why have you returned to Mournhold?"

"The Dark Brotherhood has been trying to have me killed," Fen said, dropping her voice to a whisper and moving a little further away from the flow of people that was growing as the city awoke.

"The Brotherhood?" Plitinius's face drained of colour. "But surely it's a mistake! Why would anyone wish you dead?"

"I've made a lot of enemies since I left," Fen said, trying not to think of her father as one of them. An idea struck her. "Plitinius, you've lived in this city for ages. Do you know where I could find the Dark Brotherhood?"

"I have heard rumours," he whispered, leaning close, "that their base is deep beneath the streets of the Great Bazaar, in the farthest reaches of the sewers. But Fenara, you musn't put yourself in danger!"

"I think I can handle it," she replied with a small smile. "Can you tell me how to get into the sewers?"

"The entrance is in the far corner of the Great Bazaar. But don't let anyone see you going in. They're not illegal to explore, but usually the only people that go down there are the ones with something to hide."

"Thank you, Plitinius," Fen said gratefully. "I've got to go, but I'll see you again soon, all right?"

"Be careful down there, Fenara," he said, his bouncing tone gone. "It would break your grandmother's heart if anything happened to you." His kissed her hand cordially and turned, hurrying through the arch into Godsreach.

"Who the hell was that?" Julan asked, gazing after him.

"Plitinius Mero. He's a good friend of my grandmother's. Come on, the Bazaar is just over here." Fen had intentionally dismissed the subject quickly – thinking of Plitinius made her remember of those countless occasions she had sat with him and Barenziah, and thinking of them made her heart ache.

They passed through a second arch on the other end of the Royal Courtyard entrance and entered the Great Bazaar, which was so alive with extraordinary sights and smells that Fen's knees felt weak. The Bazaar opened on a wide walkway that stretched across it, and just the walkway was crammed with street vendors shouting their wares at anyone who passed. Below, the wide plaza of the Bazaar was a confusion of color. A powerful mixture of smells crept up to where Fen and Julan stood – saffron, fire salts, lavender incense, and the sweet perfume of Timsa-Come-By. Despite the early hour, all manner of people were crammed into the Bazaar, pushing from stall to stall, flitting in and out of the row of shops on one side. The long stone benches before the outdoor theatre were crowded with people, and they cheered excitedly as two actors onstage parried with fake swords.

"This way," Fen muttered, forcing her eyes away from the fantastic delights of the Bazaar and heading down a less-populated street where she knew the city's canal ran along the walls. In a tiny alcove in the wall, a round, unlabeled trapdoor was set into the ground, worn from frequent use.

"Do you see anyone?" Fen asked, glancing around. Julan shook his head, and Fen pulled the door open and slipped in first, her feet finding the rungs of the ladder below.

The stench was the first thing that hit her – in fact, it hit her so powerfully that her hands slipped on the slimy ladder. It was easily a thousand times worse than the odor in the canalworks of Vivec – these sewers were a sickening blend of urine, disease, old meat, and pure muck that made an unpleasant lump form in Fen's throat as she splashed down into the waist-deep water at the foot of the ladder.

"Ugh," she said, moving away from the trapdoor so Julan could climb down. The trapdoor slammed shut, blocking out the ray of bright light that had been filtering down.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Julan said, gripping his nose, his voice echoing down the dank tunnel. "This place smells worse than Shani's armor after a hunt."

"Let's go up that way," Fen said in a strained tone. "It looks like we can get out of the water, at least." They splashed out of the sewage and climbed a short slope upwards to a long, empty hall that was still permeated by the foul smells. The light here was dim and greenish, and Fen slipped the Ring of Azura on her finger to help brighten the dark sewers. They passed an unfortunate lump of something that was covered in flies and rats, and Fen felt her stomach lurch.

They had barely gone ten paces when an Ancestor Ghost flew at them, its screeches bouncing off the walls. Two of Julan's enchanted arrows quickly put an end to it, but it still made Fen uneasy. They continued down the twisting hallways, encountering more and more undead that attempted, unsuccessfully, to halt their progress. Before long, the slime-covered green walls had succumbed to rough-hewn rock, and they reached a worn door set into the stone, barely hanging on by one hinge.

"How often do you think normal people come down here?" Julan asked as Fen broke the door off its hinge and threw the warped wood aside.

"They don't," she replied, ducking through the small doorway. Almost immediately, they were accosted by a dark-clothed figure. Fen fired God's Frost at him, and he dropped dead almost instantly. "I think we've found the Dark Brotherhood," she said, going to examine his armor. They left him on the ground and continued down the tunnel, meeting several more assassins along the way. They soon reached a short ledge overlooking a tall cavern, at the bottom of which a great amount of rubble had gathered. Fen pushed Julan back and they crouched out of sight of the assassins milling about below.

Fen was just about to fire a powerful God's Fire into the pit when she was suddenly pushed roughly from behind, tumbling down and landing in the centre of the black-cloaked men. She heard a shout, and Julan landed beside her with an unpleasant crunch.

"Well," one of them said, his voice muffled by his helm. "Looks like we don't even have to go anywhere for this job, boys." Someone grabbed her from behind, pulling her to her feet.

"Release us," she snarled, struggling against her captor. "You don't know who you're dealing with." A ripple of gruff laughter rang through the assembled assassins.

"We're dealing with our most difficult contract in a while," someone said, and there was a murmur of agreement. Fen deliberately struggled forward, forcing the one who held her to move up a few paces.

"But we don't have to do much now, do we?" another called, and the assassins chuckled darkly. Fen let herself go limp, and the hold on her slackened. She seized the opportunity to stamp down, hard, on his foot. There was a sickening crunch as he released her and she wasted no time in shooting a spell of God's Fire into the centre of the group. Julan's hand found her's in the confusion and they ducked to the ground as heat _swooshed _over them. When the air was cool again, they stood, surrounded by the charred bodies of the Dark Brotherhood.

"Gods, Fen," Julan muttered, massaging his wrist. "I thought we were dead for a minute."

"These assassins are too vain," Fen said, brushing dust off her robe. "They could have killed me in a second if they hadn't dawdled so. Are you all right?"

"I think my wrist is broken," he told her, wincing, and Fen carefully took hold of it and set the bone with a spell. "Thanks," Julan murmured as Fen lowered his hand and glanced around. There was an odd structure just to her left, with a twisting roof and a low door set into it.

"This is Old Mournhold," she said, walking over to the door. "The crypts look like this as well. What are they doing down here?"

"Let's see, then," Julan replied, and Fen pushed open the door and found a short, empty corridor with a single door at one end. When she opened it, they found a squat Dunmer man sitting with his backs to them before a firepit and wearing the same dark armour as the assassins, sans the helmet. Almost as soon as they entered, he leapt up with surprising agility, pulling a bow from his back and firing a shot straight at Fen.

It struck her in the shoulder. Fen cried out, stumbling back as she felt poison start to coarse through her body. Julan rushed forward, drawing Han-Sashael's blade and starting to parry with the Dunmer. Fen seized the arrow and yanked it out, gasping, her vision starting to blur. She mustered the energy to cast a spell that would combat the poison, and her focus swiftly returned. Fen quickly summoned a Flame Atronach to help Julan. A final frost spell and the man stumbled to the ground. Fen hurried forward and the dying man reached up, gripping her wrist.

"Tell…"

"Who are you?" Fen demanded, but he squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and gazed up at her again.

"Tell my liege…I have failed…h…" his hand slackened and slumped to the floor and his eyes turned glassy and blank. There was a long silence.

"See if he has anything," Julan suggested as Fen's Frost atronach disappeared, leaving the room considerably warmer. "You know, that tells us who he is." Fen pulled the quiver of poison arrows of his back and handed them to Julan, then pulled off the man's armor, searching. There was a small satin pouch of gold tied to his belt that looked oddly familiar, but Fen brushed it aside and pulled out a roll of parchment. It was marked with a blank purple seal that had been broken, and Fen unfolded the parchment, standing and holding it toward the fire so she could read the words written there, in a spidery hand:

_The Bearer of this document, under special dispensation of the Night Mother, who has entered in a contract in perpetuity with H, is given special dispensation to execute Fenara, also called Fen, a Dunmer recently residing on the island of Vvardenfell. In accordance with all laws and traditions, the afore-mentioned personage will be executed in the name of H in the most expedient manner possible. All services of the Dark Brotherhood are at the disposal of the Bearer of this binding and non-disputable document._

Fen read the writ again twice, unwilling to let her eyes linger on the _H _that seemed to call out at her from the page.

"Fen?"

"Well, it doesn't matter now," she said hastily, throwing the parchment on the ground. "Their leader is dead, who asked them to do it isn't important." She started out, but Julan passed her and picked up the rolled parchment, reading it once. Fen paused, bracing herself.

"Fen…" Julan said slowly, looking up at her.

"There are probably thousands of people in Mournhold whose initial is H," she said, her voice climbing a few octaves. "It doesn't mean anything! Let's just go."

But Julan stayed where he was, clutching the letter in one hand.

"You have to tell the guards, Fen."

"It wasn't him," she whispered, her voice shaking. "I know what you're thinking. But it wasn't him Julan, he wouldn't try to kill me." Julan said nothing, just stared at her sadly. "Say something!" Fen shouted, her hands balling into fists. "It wasn't him, my father wouldn't want me dead!" The words were like a knife in her side, sharp and sudden, and she collapsed to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Everything was wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

At some point, Fen and Julan made their way silently back through the sewers and up into the warm bustle of the Great Bazaar. Fen carried the crumpled writ in one hand and kept her eyes down as she led the way back to Godsreach. Julan said nothing when they returned to the inn and Fen went straight to her room, shutting the door firmly on lunchtime diners. She sat at the round table, reading the writ over and over again until she could repeat the words in her head. There was no denying – Helseth had hired the Dark Brotherhood – twice – to kill her. His daughter. Fen pushed sharply away from the table and started to walk circles around the room, her head pounding.

There was a soft knock and Julan appeared, his hair damp and no longer carrying the stench of the sewers.

"You okay?" he asked quietly, slipping in and shutting the door. Fen sat down on the edge of her bed, staring at her scarred hands.

"No," she said softly, and her voice was choked. Julan sat down beside her. "I just…I don't want it to be true, Julan. I know it is, but I want so badly to be dreaming, or mistaken, or…something."

"Of course you do," Julan replied. "But Fen, you can't let this go. Even if Helseth is the king, he still hired the Dark Brotherhood, which is illegal." Fen gave a short, humourless laugh.

"If I tried to tell someone about this, he could have my throat slit in a second."

"Fen," Julan said seriously. "You have to report this. We both know you need answers, at the very least." For a moment, Fen was silent.

"You're right," she muttered finally, her voice cracking. "You're right. Let me change…" she stood up and realized her hands were shaking. Julan waited outside and Fen hastily changed into a clean robe and rinsed the stench out of her hair. Writ in hand, she and Julan left the Winged Guar into the warm evening. The sky overhead was a pink-tinged blue, and the cobbles were crowded with contented people making their way home. Pleasant chatter rose above the crowd, and cicadas buzzed from the planters that lined the streets. It was so serene, so calm. So different from the scarred and shady underbelly of the sewers.

They crossed into the Plaza and Fen went straight to one of the guards in rose-coloured armour, Julan by her side.

"Speak to Tienius Delitian," he said when she explained the occurrences to him, carefully leaving out the bit about Helseth being the hirer and trying to make it sound as if she thought it was merely someone within the palace. "The captain of the guard. He'll be in the Royal Palace somewhere." To Fen's relief, Delitian was not in the Throne Room where he was usually stationed, but rather in one of the reception halls, signing several papers that a pageboy was holding out to him.

"Excuse me, Captain," Fen said quietly, and Delitian turned. He was a tall, muscular Imperial man that had always intimidated Fen when she was a child, though now she drew herself up and looked at him firmly. Delitian stared at her for a moment, then quickly dismissed the pageboy, leaving them alone in the reception chamber.

"I had not expected to see you here, Princess," he said, his expression unreadable. "It has been nearly a year."

"I know," Fen replied. "I would not have come if I didn't absolutely have to."

"If you are discovered, the King will have you hanged."

"Would you tell him I am here?" Fen asked.

"I couldn't," Delitian sighed. "I have known you since you first came to this palace, Princess. Though I am bound by contract to report you if you are seen in the city, I would not turn you over to your father's wrath. I have a daughter your age," he added grimly, "and it pains me the way the King has shuttered you from his life."

"Thank you," Fen replied quietly. "He…he is not ready to see me, I think."

"No," Delitian agreed. "But, Princess, could I ask you _why _you have returned?"

"This," Fen said, holding out the crumpled writ. Delitian took it from her curiously and unrolled it. His face turned grim.

"I won't pretend I don't know about this," he said softly, and Fen's stomach dropped. She had still been clutching the ounce of hope that she was wrong, that Helseth had _not _sent assassins after her. "The King feels you are a threat to his monarchy, Princess."

"How?" Fen asked incredulously. "I am his daughter! His next-in-line! If anything, I should be the opposite of a threat!"

"Not that," Delitian told her, rolling up the writ again. "The matter of you being the Nerevarine."

Fen's heart skipped a beat.

"He knows about that?"

"Everyone knows about it," he told her. "But very few know that the Nerevarine is also their princess. The people of Morrowind trust and adore you, Princess, and that is far from the general opinion of King Helseth."

"If he would cease trying to be rid of me, I could help him!" Fen said furiously. "It doesn't have to be one way or the other!"

"In that case, you _can _help him," Delitian said suddenly. "Just not directly."

"What do you mean?" Fen asked suspiciously.

"There are rumors among the people about your great uncle's death. Rumors that Athyn Llethan did not die a natural death. There's no truth to them, of course," he added hastily. "Speak to the people about King Llethan's death. You are not known to them as my representative or the princess, and they may be more candid with you. Let me know if you find the source of these rumors."

"Will no one suspect?"

"Very few know of your true identity, Princess," the captain told her simply. "You will be protected. Now, if you will excuse me." With that, he turned and strode out of the room, leaving Fen and Julan alone in the reception chamber.

"Are you sure he isn't going to tell your father?" Julan asked worriedly.

"He needs me," Fen said, going to the door that led out into the courtyard. "He wouldn't."

It was late in the afternoon, and Fen and Julan headed for the Great Bazaar, where Fen reasoned there would be the most talk surrounding the death of her great uncle. She had attended his private funeral shortly before her exile, though she had only met him once or twice as a child and her only memories of him were those of a tired old man.

The Bazaar felt strangely quiet, and Fen only realized why when they came upon the outdoor theatre, where an enormous crowd had gathered in the stone benches before the round stage, looks of irritation playing on their faces.

"What's going on?" Julan asked blankly.

"They're putting on a play, it looks like," Fen said, bypassing the stage. She had never much cared for theatre. As they went around to the other side of the stage, they collided suddenly with a bright-faced Dunmer man swathed in flamboyant attire, and he quickly leapt to his feet again.

"Terribly sorry!" he said hastily, helping Fen up and mopping his brow with a hankerchief. "I'm all in a tizzy. Allow me to introduce myself." He stuck out his hand cordially. Fen took it and he knelt low to kiss it. "Meryn Othralas, founder of the Mournhold Players. You came here, of course, to see our fabulous production of _The Horror of Castle Xyr, _did you not?"

"Actually – "

"Well, I'm very sorry to inform you that we won't be putting on the show today. I was just on my way to tell our audience. The troupe has its own drama to worry about at the moment." He closed his eyes dramatically and paused. After a moment, he opened one eye, looking expectantly at Fen.

"Um…why not?"

"Would you believe that the very day we are supposed to open this superb production, our leading actor, Tarvus Beleth, comes down with collywobbles?!" Meryn exclaimed loudly. "We can't find anyone to take over his part! I would do it, but my expertise is desperately needed backstage. So now I've just got to stand up here and try to drive people away from our heavily promoted production." He mopped his brow with the hankerchief again. "I just wish we could find someone who looks like – " he paused, staring past Fen at Julan as if noticing him for the first time.

"Wait just a minute there, Dunmer," he said slowly, looking Julan up and down. "You know, you kind of look a little like Tarvus. I think this might work. What do you say? Would you like to take on the part of Clavides, Captain of the Imperial Guard, in our production?" Julan stared blankly at Meryn.

"I…well, um, I've never been in a play before."

"Oh, there's nothing to it! All you've got to do is stand up there and really _feel _the lines. And we so badly need someone to take this part. I would pay you, of course." At this, Julan's eyes brightened.

"Uh…sure. I'll give it a try."

"Fantastic," Meryn said as Fen turned to glare at Julan. Meryn whipped a thick ream of parchment from his belt and held it out to Julan. "Here, take a copy of the script. As you can see, people are already starting to gather, so we need to get this show started. I'm sure you know _The Horror of Castle Xyr_ quite well, don't you?

"Well – "

"Of course you do, so there's no need for a lengthy rehearsal. Review the script for the next two minutes, then talk to me again. Make sure you come back within two minutes, as our play requires exact timing to pull off correctly." With that, Meryn hurried past them and stepped out onstage to thunderous applause.

"_What are you doing?_" Fen hissed as Meryn started to speak to the delighted audience.

"I'm helping them out," he said feverishly, flipping open the script. It was nearly two hundred pages long, and the print was small. "Gods…this is lengthier than I thought."

"I don't believe you," Fen said in disbelief as Julan started flipping through the script.

"Fen…there's no way I can memorize all this!"

"Then you shouldn't have agreed to do it!" Julan shot her an earnest look, and she sighed and snatched the script from him. "I'll wear my Amulet of Shadows and whisper you the lines," she said, extracting it from her bag. "Better than nothing."

Meryn's opening remarks ended with more applause, and he appeared backstage just as Fen vanished.

"Good job, ah…what was your name?"

"Julan."

"Excellent. Good job, Julan. You're right on time. Let's get this show on the road. Do you have the script?"

"Um…I lost it."

"No matter," Meryn said lightly. "All you have to do is head out there through the door, hit your mark in the center of the rug next to Gureryne, stand still, and deliver your lines. She's already out there. Move quickly through the door – timing is everything. And be careful, the audience knows the play well, and I'll be counting your mistakes. Break a leg!" With that, he seized a dented Imperial Legion helmet from a chest of props, jammed it unceremoniously on Julan's head, and gestured to the door. Fen opened the script, which had turned invisible with her, and slipped through the door behind Julan, standing just over his shoulder on the stage. There were more people than she had expected in the audience, all of them watching excitedly as Julan stopped in the centre of the rug and turned awkwardly to speak to a white-haired Dunmer woman waiting there.

"Good evening to you, serjo," she said brightly, stepping back to shut the door behind Julan. Fen squinted at Julan's first line and leaned towards his ear.

"'_Good evening, is your master at home?_'" she whispered.

"Um…good evening, is your master home?" Julan repeated nervously. The woman grinned broadly.

"No, serjo, it's only me here. My master, Sedura Kena Telvanni Hordalf Xyr, is at his winter estate. Is there something _I_ can do for you?" Someone in the crowd tittered excitedly and Fen quickly glanced at the next line.

"'_Possibly. Would you mind if I came in?_'"

"Er – possibly. Can I come in?"

"Certainly, serjo," she said cheerfully, crossing the stage to a small table with several bottles on it. "May I offer you some flin?"

"'_No, thank you, what's your name_?" Fen whispered, following Julan as he went to stand by the table. He repeated it back and the Dunmer woman poured herself a goblet and took a long drink, then smiled.

"Anara, serjo."

"'_Anara, when did your master leave Scath-Anud?_'"

"Um…when did…he leave?"

"Who serjo, my master?"

"Uh…yes."

"Why, more than a fortnight ago!" she exclaimed. "That's why it's only me in the castle, serjo. All the other servants and slaves who tend to his lordship travel with him." She paused and took a step towards Julan, placing a familiar hand on his shoulder and smiling oddly at him. "Is there something _wrong_, serjo?"

"'_Do you know an Ashlander named Ashur-Dan?_'" Fen read, relaying the line to him in a whisper.

"Do you know an Ashlander named….um….Nibani Maesa?" Fen sighed and the Dunmer actress looked puzzled. The audience tittered loudly.

"No, serjo, I know no one by _that _name."

"'_He's dead. His last words were 'castle' and 'Xyr._''" Julan repeated the line, and the actress looked politely confused.

"B'vek, that's strange," she said brightly. "I suppose it's _possible_ that my master knew this man, but being an Ashlander and my master being of the House of Telvanni, well, if you'll pardon me for being flippant, serjo, I don't think they would be friends."

"'_Could I look in your master's library?_'" Fen whispered.

"Can I….look in the library?"

"Please, serjo, go wherever you want. We have nothing to hide. We're loyal Imperial subjects."

"'_As I hear, are all Telvanni._'"

"As I hear, are all Telvanni." Fen started to push Julan in the direction of the 'library' Anara had gestured to, but she had barely touched him when there was a sudden stir in the audience and a Dunmer man had sprinted up onstage, a Daedric short blade drawn. Fen glanced back down at the script – there was no fight scene there. She quickly dropped the script and shoved Julan roughly to the ground as the assailant's wazashiki just barely missed him. The woman playing Anara screamed and Fen, still invisible, shot a powerful frost spell at the attacker. The audience gasped. He stumbled slightly, just enough to give Julan time to leap up and rush forward with his father's blade. Fen hung back, not wanting to accidentally injure someone in the audience, while Julan and the mysterious Dunmer parried. Before long, Julan cast a lucky blow and sent his blade straight through the man's chest and pulled it out coated in blood. The man collapsed and the audience leapt to their feet, cheering wildly.

Julan glanced down at his attacker's body, then at his blade, then at the screaming audience, clearly confused. The Dunmer actress quickly stepped forward.

"You should go and see Meryn," she muttered, touching Julan's arm, and Fen seized his wrist and pulled him offstage.

"What the hell was that?" she demanded, yanking the Amulet of Shadows off her neck and rippling into visibility. Meryn grinned nervously.

"I…ah, hope you can forgive us, Julan. But we knew that assassin would attack sooner or later."

"You _knew _about this?" Fen said incredulously as Julan pulled off the dented Imperial helm, still looking confused.

"Yes, well, you see, our lead actor, Tarvus, recently had a somewhat indecent tryst with the daughter of a Telvanni diplomat. The diplomat caught him in the act, and vowed revenge. Since Tarvus changes residences frequently, we knew an attack would come during his performance, when the diplomat could be sure of Tarvus' location.

"Hopefully, since you were able to dispatch the would-be assassin, the diplomat won't try again. I know that the services of the Morag Tong are very expensive to enlist. I apologize for using you in this manner, Julan, but I hope you understand why it was necessary."

"You're going to pay me, though, right?" Julan asked.

"Ah, yes, well, I do intend to pay you in full," he said, snapping his fingers. A dark-clothed crew member appeared beside him, ready with a sack of coins. "Let's see, during the play you made several mistakes, even with your friend here whispering the lines in your ear. Not quite up to the standards of a professional troupe like the Mournhold Players, but not too bad, nonetheless. Your acting needs work, though it wasn't bad for an amateur." The crew member handed Meryn two thousand-Septim coins. "Here, take this gold as payment," Meryn said, holding it out to Julan. Thank you again, and I hope you can forgive us." Fen shot Meryn a nasty glare and they started to leave, but were suddenly surrounded by a flood of excitedly jabbering people, all of them wanting to get close to Julan.

"That was an incredible performance!"

"It was much shorter than the original, but what a new ending!"

"That man is still laying on the stage bleeding! I swear that swordfight almost looked real." Several people jockeying for position in front of Julan were holding out bits of parchment and quills, shouting for his autograph.

"Come on," Fen said, grabbing Julan's wrist before he could take the quills and extracting him, with some difficulty, from the crowd.

"They were fans!" Julan snapped, pulling his hand out of her grip. "They wanted my signature."

"We have more pressing things to do, I'm afraid," Fen replied, quickening her pace. "Let's go back to the Winged Guar. Someone there will talk."

Going to the Winged Guar, it appeared, had been the opposite of what Fen was hoping to achieve – it was evidently the place all the theatre-goers went after a performance to discuss the show in depth, and as soon as Julan entered there was a loud cheer and he was surrounded once again. Fen let Julan's admirers drag him to the bar for drinks and went to the upper level of the inn, where several people that were evidently not enamored by Julan's performance were dining together, talking animatedly from their different tables. When Fen entered, one Breton woman hailed her.

"Welcome, Lady Nerevarine," she said, gesturing to a free seat at her table.

"Thank you," Fen replied, sitting down.

"We didn't expect to see you in Mournhold, Lady Nerevar," someone said, and there was a murmur of agreement.

"I grew up here," Fen told them. "I wanted to visit."

"You didn't come at the best time," said a heavyset Nord man at another table. "Since King Llethan died, this city has been in a state."

"I heard about that while I was in Vvardenfell," Fen lied. "How did he die?"

"Natural causes," a few people said, but the Breton woman Fen was sitting with shook her head.

"That's not what they say over at Llethan Manor." Fen looked at her curiously.

"What do you mean?" The woman leaned forward.

"If you want to know, talk to Llethan's widow herself. She'll tell anyone who'll listen how her niece's son is a murdering, power-hungry tyrant."

"And she hasn't been hushed up?" A few people looked impressed.

"Maybe the Nerevarine knows more about Mournhold's government than we do!" someone said, and pleasant laughter filled the room. After the subject changed, Fen managed to excuse herself and slip outside. An Ordinator gave her instructions to Llethan manor, and she entered silently.

The front room was small, and a Bosmer woman with violently red hair and bonemold armor sat in a chair beside a door, flipping lazily through a book.

"You here to pay your respects to Queen Llethan?" she asked without looking up.

"Yes."

"Go on through, then," she said, nodding to the door. Fen pushed it open and found herself in a small library where her great aunt, a slender Dunmer woman with a wizened face and a pile of blue-black hair sat reading sympathy cards at a desk. She raised her eyes to meet Fen's and squinted.

"What do you want? Come to say you're sorry when you didn't even know the man? Or did he owe you something?"

"Sera, I am your great-niece. Fenara. We spoke at King Llethan's funeral." The woman studied her for a moment.

"So you are. Call me Ravani, then, child. And tell me, what are all these rumours in the family of you being sent to Vvardenfell?"

"It's a very extensive story," Fen said quickly. "But Ravani, I've heard tell that you don't believe that my great uncle died naturally."

"Are you working for Helseth?" Ravani asked suspiciously. Fen shook her head. "They murdered him!" Ravani shouted suddenly, balling her hand into a fist and slamming it into the table, flying to her feet. "Helseth and his spiders! Everyone knows, and no one lifts a finger. Imperial justice! Hah! I SPIT on Imperial justice! They killed my husband, and now that wicked man is king. I curse Helseth, and all his kin! May they die tomorrow, weeping, watching their children die today!" She paused. "Save you, of course, child."

"How do you know he was murdered?"

"Everyone knows," she snarled. "It's there in print, for everyone to see, in the broadside sheet called _The Common Tongue_. It says Helseth poisoned hundreds of people when he was in the West. If Helseth was a wicked murderer before, why not now?"

"If it is any condolence, he has tried to have me killed as well. Twice."

"It doesn't surprise me. I'm next, no doubt. After that he'll go for Barenziah."

"Thank you for your help," Fen said quickly, suddenly uncomfortable, and she quickly departed the manor and headed back to the Winged Guar, her head bursting with questions. The people said that Helseth had murdered Llethan. A year ago, Fen would have scoffed at the idea, but now that he had tried twice to kill her, the thought of him poisoning Llethan did not seem very unlikely at all.

In the time she had been at Llethan Manor, much of the crowd from the theatre had dwindled away, and Julan was now left sitting at the bar with three Dunmer girls wearing low-cut dresses, all of whom were giggling uncontrollably with a plethora of Mazte bottles by their hands.

"But they didn't – _hic!_ – tell me abou' the surprise ending!" Julan was saying. "I didn't – _hic! _– realize that fetcher was going to – _hic!_ – attack me! Bu' I was ready. An' I pulled out my sword an' – _sliced _'im!" The girls giggled again, and Julan wheeled around. "Hi Fen!" he said brightly. "We're just talking 'bout my play!"

"Right," Fen said wryly, going to stand by the bar. It was littered with rubbish from the dinner-goers that night, and a few scraps of paper littered the floor. She bent down and picked up the largest one, emblazoned boldly at the top with _The Common Tongue. _"Perfect," she muttered, folding it once. "Julan, I'm going to bed. We have to be up early tomorrow to visit the palace."

"Okay, Fen," Julan slurred before wheeling back around. "So I was jus' standing up there, saying my lines, and this s'wit _runs _out of the audience!" Fen shut her door on Julan's tale and sat down on her bed, opening the broadsheet to read it, despite her not wanting to:

_I have a little list. They never would be missed._

_Appearing at the top – three names... Anhar, Khajiit male – Martyrius Arruntius, Imperial male – Jusole Asciele, Breton male. What do these three names have in common?_

_All three at one time or another represented an inconvenience to a Western noble prince named Helseth._

_Anhar was an agent for Eastern ebony merchants. There was an unfortunate scandal concerning improper contracts offered to Helseth as compensation for his assistance in obtaining ebony import remits from the Imperial Board of Census and Excise. Luckily for Prince Helseth, this scandal blew over when no one could be found to testify. Is it just a coincidence that Anhar's health went into a steep decline, just as he was to testify before the Imperial magistrates? He died a natural death, according to the Imperial coroners. Convenient and timely, perhaps, but natural._

_Martyrius Arruntius was a city alderman of Wayrest. Prince Helseth's liaison with the alderman's married daughter was potentially embarrassing to the Prince – especially when Martyrius Arruntius forcefully pressed his suit for 'predatory adultery' in Wayrest's courts. Many thought it strange that Martyrius Arruntius should suddenly fall ill and die of 'exhaustion' on the eve of the trial. The suit was settled out of court, and charges dismissed. The Imperial coroners ruled that Martyrius Arruntius had died a natural death. Convenient and timely, admittedly, but natural._

_Jusole Asciele was a diplomatic attache at the High Rock embassy in Wayrest. Widely rumored to be an intelligence officer, Jusole Asciele was often seen at court, taking a great interest in the affairs of Queen Barenziah and her family. It is said that Wayrest can be a beastly uncomfortable place in high summer. Perhaps the Breton's constitution was ill-suited to the relentless heat and pestilential swarms of the southern Iliac. Jusole Asciele took suddenly ill one evening, and within three days he was dead. Once again, Imperial coroners ruled that Jusole Asciele had died a natural death. Convenient and timely, yes, but natural._

_And these, The Common Tongue notes significantly, are only the 'A's on the list._

_Some have quietly suggested that Prince Helseth was the most accomplished and subtle poisoner in the West. But The Common Tongue has never seen a single scrap of evidence that would prove such an indictment. [Admittedly, the absence of such proof could count as qualifying towards the title of a 'most accomplished and subtle poisoner'.]_

_And, further, The Common Tongue does not wish to suggest that King Helseth is a poisoner, or that the recent death of King Athyn Llethan's was a poisoning, and not a natural death. The Common Tongue has never seen a single scrap of evidence that would prove such an indictment. And the Imperial coroners have ruled that Athyn Llethan died a natural death._

Fen lowered the broadsheet slowly. She had seen the book _A Game at Dinner _before, but had never thought to read it, not realizing it was about her father. And reading _The Common Tongue _made her think that Helseth trying to have her murdered was not as unlikely as she had thought.


	5. Chapter 5

"This is perfect, Princess," Delitian said as she handed him the folded copy of _The Common Tongue. _"Just what we needed to sort out these rumours."

"They _are _just rumours then?" Fen asked suspiciously. "There's no truth to them?"

"None at all," Delitian replied dismissively, tucking _The Common Tongue _into his belt. Fen could help but feel as if she had betrayed the greater population of Mournhold as he did so. "Well done. I'll mention your loyal services and exceptional qualities to King Helseth." Fen shot him an urgent look. "As an anonymous aid," Delitian added quickly. "I assure, you the King knows nothing of your being here, Princess. And I think we might find you further employment. For example, we lack sources of information in Almalexia's Temple. Could you help me find a Temple informant?" Fen smiled wanly.

"The Temple doesn't think much of me these days," she told him.

"Well, we need a source of information inside it. There are rumors of discontent in the Temple. Go to Almalexia's Temple. Look for someone discontented. Listen sympathetically," he said simply. "And find out whether the Temple is willing to accept King Helseth – or whether the Temple plans to act against him."

"Was my father faithful to the Tribunal?"

"Of course he was, Delitian said again, and his dismissive tone irritated Fen. "Can you help us?"

"I'll take care of it."

"Good," Delitian said, going to the door that led to the throne room. "When you've done that, find a pageboy and send for me. I don't think it would be wise for you to stride into your father's midst." Fen agreed and left into the sunny Palace Courtyard, where she found Julan leaning against a pillar looking exhausted.

"Woken up, have you?" she asked, and Julan shot her a tired glare.

"I'm a celebrity in Mournhold," he said defensively. "I can't help it if my fans want to buy me drinks."

"I don't think those girls were buying you drinks because of your performance," Fen muttered, starting across the courtyard to the entrance to the Temple. The Temple Courtyard was significantly less crowded than the Plaza Brindisi Dorum, as it often was. The Temple itself, standing on a raised platform in the centre of the district, dominated most of the space, casting a shadow over the gardens surrounding it with its long, twisting spires and elegant terraces. Fen had only visited the Temple a few times – she could never remember going regularly to worship there. She had grown up visiting the private shrine to the Tribunal with her grandmother every Sundas.

She and Julan climbed the wide stairs up to the door, where they were met by a middle-aged Dunmer woman in a robe decorated with words of prayer.

"Give to the Temple, and receive the blessings of Almalexia," she said, hailing them. "Our wealth dies with us, my child, but our good deeds outlive us all. Would you care to make a donation to the Temple, and receive the blessings of the Lady of Mercy?" Fen handed her a few coins.

"For the Temple, then, mehra."

"Thank you, my child," she said, taking Fen's coins gratefully.

"Mehra, what will Almalexia do with that money?"

"Almalexia watches over all Her children – the sick, the needy, the poor. Well...not actually in person. She used to...in person, you know. But She's made no public appearance for years, so the Temple takes care of Her children for Her. That's what the money goes for, child."

"She used to appear in public?" Fen had always remembered Almalexia being some cloistered being, not quite real, hiding in seclusion but watching over the city from her chapel.

"You know about Almsivi, the Living Gods of our Temple?" Fen nodded, deciding not to mention that they were no longer divine. "Gods, but at the same time, living folks like you and me. Almalexia, the Lady of Mercy, walked the streets of Mournhold Herself, healed the sick, fed the poor – gave them clothes from Her own hand. The same with Lord Vivec. Then, ten years ago, about the time of the Ghostfence, They stopped appearing in public – needed all Almsivi's power for the Ghostfence, They said. High priests still talk with Them, but we don't see Them."

"Thank you, mehra," Fen said, and the priestess nodded and slipped away to go speak to another traveler.

"I _hate _the crazy Temple priests," Julan said angrily. "Even after you expose the Tribunal's lies, Fen, these people are _still _running about like the living gods are the best things that's ever happened to Tamriel."

"They weren't always bad," Fen muttered, leading the way towards the enormous front door of the Temple.

"Wait a minute," Julan said suddenly. "I just thought of something. Almalexia was Nerevar's wife, right? And you're the reincarnation of Nerevar. So you're _married to Almalexia!_" Julan doubled over in sudden laughter and Fen rolled her eyes as she pushed open the door. Julan's laughing stopped abruptly as they entered the high-ceilinged reception hall on the Temple, where several people walked about on shining marble floors, going quietly about their business. Directly across the room from them, a set of colossal double doors led to Almalexia's High Chapel, where no one could enter unless summoned by her. Fen decided it wouldn't be a good idea to ask about discontent in the front room of the Temple, as there were several High Ordinators about, so she and Julan went down a long, twisting hallway toward the infirmary.

"…and just leave it exposed for two or three days, and it should heal nicely," someone was saying from down the hall. "There. That's it. Come see me again if the swelling starts back up." Someone uttered a gruff thanks, then a Dunmer man with a half-healed wound exited a room and passed them, going the opposite way down the hall. Fen and Julan entered the room he had come from, where a tall, strong-faced Dunmer woman in a simple blue robe was putting away bottles in a cabinet. A High Ordinator lurked near the beds at the back of the infirmary.

"Good morning," she said, smiling at Fen and Julan as they entered. "How can I help you?" Before Fen could speak, the woman's eyes darkened. "Oh….the Nerevarine. In Mournhold. How interesting." She turned sharply back to her work and the High Ordinator tensed slightly.

"Sera, I was wondering if you know my friend, Mehra Milo?" The woman stopped sorting potions, her back still towards Fen.

"Serjo, would you excuse us for a moment?" she asked without turning, and the High Ordinator gave Fen a dirty look and left the room. The healer turned as soon as he was gone and shut the door. "I didn't realize you knew Mehra," she said, locking it with a key from her pocket. "I am a faithful believer...but Almalexia makes me uneasy. For the last fifty years, the Tribunal stopped walking among us, stopped listening and speaking with us. This worried me, and made me sad. Were our gods abandoning us? Were they growing weak? But since Almalexia has lately come among us again, I feel more worry, not less. Her face glows brightly with hope and power, but her words seem dark and bitter." Fen wasn't sure how to reply at first, the woman's outpouring of sudden bottled thoughts was so strong.

"Does she think Helseth to be a fool, then?" The healer's eyes darkened.

"Helseth has murdered King Llethan and stolen his crown. It does not matter that King Llethan was a fool. He was _our_ fool. So long as the puppet king was a joke, we all could laugh and ignore him. Helseth is not a fool, and no one is laughing. If Helseth seeks in earnest to be king, then Almalexia and the Temple are sworn in earnest to destroy him." Fen looked uneasily at her, conflicted between her father's desire to have her dead and her unconditional love for him.

"Thank you, then. For your help." The woman nodded silently and unlocked the door, letting Fen and Julan out.

"I thought Mournhold was supposed to be the City of Love," Julan mused as they left the Temple and exited into the bright, warm air. "Seems like nobody loves anyone else here."

"Things are a bit disputed, yes," Fen said distractedly, starting towards the Palace. "Julan, I feel awful helping Helseth. He tried to kill me. Twice."

"Would helping the Tribunal feel better? They actually _did _kill you, remember."

"I suppose," Fen muttered, but it was still with some hesitation that she relayed the information to Delitian at the Palace.

"Galsa Andrano speaks her mind, and, from what you say, sounds sincere. You handled her well. The Temple seems to recognize that King Helseth will not be content to be a puppet like King Llethan, and plans to act against us. Very good work, Fen. Now you can help us with another matter. King Helseth is concerned about possible disloyalty among the Guards."

"How long are you going to ask me to spy on the people of Mournhold for my father when he doesn't even want me to be alive?" Delitian eyed her strongly.

"You wanted to help the King, and I am giving you an outlet to do it without making yourself known to him."

"Fine," Fen replied, not in the mood to argue. "What do you want me to do?"

"I've replaced many of the former king's guards with more reliable men, so very few will know of your identity. But I had to keep some experienced guards, and I can't be certain of their loyalties. I will pretend you wish to join the Royal Guards. That's your excuse for talking to the guards, sounding them out, and looking for evidence of disloyalty. If you find any hint of treason or evidence of disloyalty, report it to me. Take no action. Report to me, and I will judge what action is appropriate."

"Is there anyone in particular to be looking for?" Fen asked. Delitian snorted.

"It's _your_ judgment I'm testing, not mine," he said shortly. "Talk to them yourself. Form your own conclusions. And if people ask you about your background and qualifications, play the close-mouthed professional. Tell them to mind their own business. But I'll let slip my concerns about you hiding close dealings with House Hlaalu in the past. Only a fool would share confidences with a stranger. But perhaps we are dealing with a fool." Fen only nodded, her jaw clenched shut, and she and Julan exited the reception chamber.

"Who are we talking to first, then?" Julan asked, clapping his hands together.

"Who are _you _talking to first, you mean." Julan cast a nervous glance at her.

"Fen…"

"No one would believe that _I _want to join the Royal Guard, Julan. I practically smell like a spellcaster. And besides, you proved that you're a top-notch actor already."

"But I look like an Ashlander!" he protested. "I've gotten more strange looks here than I ever did in Vvardenfell!"

"Turn around," Fen said, pulling a bit of twine out of her bag. Julan reluctantly complied, and she tied his hair back into a tiny knot at the back of his head.

"I feel like a woman," he said as Fen tucked his hair up out of his face.

"But you don't look like an Ashlander," she replied simply. "And your name is Athaso Rindal, and I'm your sister Fedura. We're from Balmora, and you're looking to join the Royal Guard."


	6. Chapter 6

It had been over a year since Fen had last been in the Palace, but her memory served her well as she and Julan made their way through the finely tiled reception chambers.

"That's the way to the Imperial Cult shrine," Fen muttered, glancing off to the left. "So that means the guards' quarters are over here."

"This place is a maze," Julan said, in half-awe and half-disgust. "How do you find your way around?"

"I went through a bit of a rebellious phase when I was younger," Fen said distractedly, peering down another hallway to be sure no one was listening. "I wasn't supposed to ever leave the Upper Hall of the Palace, and I managed to find ways to sneak down here and get out into the city if I had a few coins to bribe the servants."

"And you weren't recognized?"

"The only guards that knew me were the ones here," she told him. "I was perfectly fine just wandering in the city." She turned a corner, and nearly collided with a tall, sharp-boned Dunmer woman in Rose Guard armour, carrying her helm under her arm. Her eyes were sharp, and Fen felt heat rise in her cheeks. _How much did she hear?_

"We don't allow civilians into these areas of the Palace," the guard snapped, her lip twisting and her eyes narrowing. Fen held in a sigh of relief.

"We were just –"

"I'm looking to join the Royal Guard, actually," Julan said, swiftly cutting her off. Fen quieted, deciding it would be best to let Julan handle the guard.

"Both of you?" the woman snapped, glancing at Fen.

"Er…no, this is my…sister. She just came with me."

"I've never been out of Balmora before," Fen lied smoothly, and the Dunmer's face softened suddenly.

"I grew up in Balmora myself. I'm Aleri Aren," she added in a much warmer tone, inclining her head towards Julan. "Been destined for the Royal Guard all my life, and so was my mother and her mother. I served King Llethan for many years, and now I'll serve King Helseth. Long live the King, and long live the Emperor," she added in a rather halfhearted tone. "It's none of my business, of course, but why do you want to be a guard? You look like you've done well enough for yourself as an adventurer."

"Er – not so well, actually," Julan said quickly, his cheeks reddening.

"What do you think of King Helseth?" Fen asked, and Aleri glanced at her.

"It is my honor to serve King Helseth and Queen Barenziah," she said simply, though there wasn't much feeling in her words. "Anyway, if you want to join the guard you'll have to speak to the captain. Excuse me." She passed them and continued down the hall, the sound of her boots clicking on the tiles gradually dying away. Fen and Julan exchanged a glance.

"This way," Fen said finally, going down the way Aleri had come from to the door that led to the guards' quarters. They emerged into an empty common room, featuring little more than a few shelves and a round table. Julan picked up an empty tankard on the table and sniffed it, then made a face.

"Ugh…what kind of shit do they drink here?"

"Let's go up," Fen said, gesturing to the stairs in the corner. They mounted the stairs and found themselves in a long room lined with beds, each separated by a folding screen. Just as they entered, Fen heard two voices, arguing, down the opposite hall. She grabbed Julan's arm and they ducked behind a folding screen just as two Royal guards entered the room, holding their helms under their arms.

"Helseth is no fool," the darker of the two men was saying. "He's got to keep some experienced men like us around. And they need us to teach those new fellows their business."

"They're not going to keep us around if they suspect us," the second man said, turning to stand directly in front of his companion. "Helseth's power is more important to him than having experienced guards, Ivulen. Hell, the Nerevarine could come in here and he wouldn't let her in his guard. He just doesn't trust us."

"Unlike King Llethan," Ivulen muttered crossly. "That idiot had no idea what we did, and didn't much care."

"But now we have to deal with Helseth, and once that's done there will be a new tone around here. Did you talk to Aleri?"

"Yeah. She said she switched the watches for us."

"Good," the second man said firmly. "It's only a matter of time then."

"Get up," Fen whispered to Julan, nudging him. They got to their feet just as the two guards turned.

"Who are you?" Ivulen said crossly, not seeming to notice that they had been crouching behind the screen.

"I'm Athaso Rindal. This is my sister Fedura. I'm looking to join the Royal Guard." The two men exchanged glances. Fen, remembering Delitian's words about House Hlaalu, quickly interjected.

"Our father is a Hlaalu councilor in Balmora," she said, trying very hard to sound pompous about it.

"Oh? Really?" Ivulen said genuinely. "Does Tienius Delitian know that?"

"No."

"Did you talk to Aleri Aren?" Julan nodded. "You should tell her that you're House Hlaalu. Really. But don't tell Tienius Delitian. Just tell Aleri Aren."

"Why –?" Fen started, but the two men pushed past them and went straight back downstairs. "Right," she said, glancing around to be sure they were alone. "You go and find Aleri and tell her that you're Hlaalu. I'm going to poke around a bit in here."

Julan went back downstairs and Fen pulled the Amulet of Shadows from her bag, slipping it around her neck and instantly becoming invisible. She went to the first bed, checking under the pillow and the mattress, then carefully opening the chest and starting to rummage through. There wasn't much of interest – just a dull dirk, a few books, and a dented copper necklace. She was just closing the chest when she heard a noise behind her and turned silently. Ivulen was back, clutching his helmet nervously and glancing around.

When he saw the room was empty (or appeared empty), he hurried over to the bed Fen stood by. She carefully backed out of the way as Ivulen went to the table at the end of the bed, pulled out a quill, and made a couple quick slashes on a parchment sitting there. There was a sudden noise and a second guard appeared, making Ivulen jump.

"Ivulen, we're on Plaza duty in five," he said, and Ivulen hastily swept the parchment off the table and nudged it under the bed. As soon as he was gone, Fen picked up the parchment, studying it closely. The handwriting was tiny and almost illegible, with frequent misspellings. But three names are always correctly spelled – Milvela Dralen, Ivulen Irano, and Aleri Aren – and those watches when all three are the only guards in the Throne Room have been underlined twice.

"Fen? You in here?" Fen pulled off the Amulet of Shadows and became visible to Julan, who had just entered. "Aleri basically told me Ivulen was an idiot," he said, and his eyes went to the parchment in Fen's hands. "What's that?"

"I think this is the proof we've been looking for," she said, handing it to him. He glanced over it, squinting at the miniscule print.

"Does this mean I can take my hair down?"

"Yes," Fen muttered, taking the note back and folding it in half. "Let's go take this to Delitian, then we can go back to the inn for dinner. Hopefully he won't have any more spying for me to do."

Delitian was oddly delighted at the note when Fen handed it to him.

"This is Ivulen Irano's handwriting on the note. He notes the watches when Dralen, Aren, and Irano are the only guards in the Throne Room. I believe I'll change the watch schedules to prevent that," he added, folding the note and slipping it into his belt. "And I'll need to keep a close eye on all three. Very shrewd work, Fen. You've brought me clear evidence of disloyalty among the guards. Now I need your help finding evidence of conspiracy against King Helseth among the Hlaalu nobles." Fen sighed heavily.

"What makes you think I would find evidence of conspiracy? I have been to see Ravani once already, and she is just as convinced as the rest of Mournhold that Helseth murdered King Llethan."

"Do you want to regain your father's trust or not?" the captain asked severely. Fen gave him a hard look, then nodded once. "Good. The old king's Hlaalu supporters haven't accepted King Helseth's accession to the Throne with good grace, as you've seen. Maybe they think that another candidate – a Hlaalu candidate, for example – would be better. Maybe they have some plan to express such a preference. If so, I doubt they would be candid about it. But maybe you should search Llethan Manor for documents, diaries or other tangible evidence of such plans."

"I'll take care of it," Fen said, and Delitian sent them on their way.


	7. Chapter 7

Llethan Manor looked no different as it had the last time Fen had visited. It stood tall and lonely in the upperclass district of Godsreach, as if in defiance of the cheery, brightly-lit buildings that surrounded it. Its roseglass windows were dark and silent, and only a single lantern burned outside the door. The High Ordinators patrolling the cobbled streets shot them suspicious glances as they mounted the platform that led to the manor's doorstep.

"I've already spoken with Ravani once, I can't go in again," Fen said, ducking behind a planter the size of two large men with Julan. She drew the Amulet of Shadows from her bag. "You'll have to do it, pretend you're there to pay your respects while I have a look around."

"What do I saw to her?" Julan whispered as Fen slid the amulet around her neck and flickered out of visibility.

"Just make something up," she muttered back. "You'll be able to do that. You were a natural in the play."

The Bosmer guard in bonemold let them through, and Ravani surveyed Julan cruelly, her black eyes scanning his face.

"What do you want?" she snapped darkly as the door swung shut behind Fen.

"I…just wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss," Julan said quickly. Fen crept around the desk, quickly scanning the shelves for evidence.

"I don't even know you. Why would _you _be sorry?"

"Um…my father was…friends with King Llethan." Fen moved to the next shelf, having found nothing.

"Really? Because Athyn didn't keep many friends. Mostly advisors."

"They were friends at…school."

"Athyn was privately educated."

"Exactly! My father was – um – his tutor's son. They were the same age." Fen glanced around the room again. There was nothing on any of the shelves, and Julan wasn't going to last much longer. She crossed silently behind Ravani's chair and pushed open a door that led into a large storage room.

"What's that?" Ravani said sharply, looking towards the door.

"Just – a draft, I'm sure," Julan said quickly, oblivious to the fact that there were no windows in the room. Fen went to the back of the storage room, where there was a stained desk that had a few papers atop it. She picked up the topmost paper as Julan continued to occupy Ravani. The parchment was grubby and the ink looked cheap on the page. She held it close to her nose in the dark storage room and read quickly:

_Forven,_

_I cannot agree. I am a merchant, and have no skill at arms. You are a noble, and in your prime were proven on practice and tournament grounds - though, in truth, you have never fought a duel, and have few gifts as a liar. No one can doubt Hloggar the Bloody's aptitude and enthusiasm for mayhem, but he is not a subtle man, more suited for a brawl or battlefield than an assassin's role._

_And we cannot trust the Dark Brotherhood. Helseth owns them. They promise discretion, but their promises are worthless._

_I am afraid we must approach the Morag Tong. I agree with you. They will probably refuse. But at least they can be trusted to be discreet._

_If, in the end, we are forced to choose among ourselves, I fear it must be you. And we will have to wrack our brains for some plausible pretext that will get you into Helseth's presence._

_I am disappointed, though not surprised, at lack of public outcry over Athyn's murder. The popular sentiment seems to be to avoid personal risk and accept Helseth. It's short-sighted, but understandable. I have noted, however, that the writer of THE COMMON TONGUE is sympathetic to our cause, clever and eloquent. He may be able to sway opinion. We should try to identify this fellow and try to bring him into our counsels._

_your faithful servant,  
Bedal Alen_

This was, quite clearly, the kind of evidence Delitian wanted. Guiltily, Fen tucked the letter into her pocket and slipped back into the library, where Julan was still stammering before Ravani.

"My father always spoke – very highly of King Llethan. He wished he could have come here himself, you know, but he's – er – very sick."

"Is he now?" Ravani said skeptically as Fen crept forward and tugged on Julan's sleeve.

"Yes – but I must be going. Um – sorry again." With that, Julan quickly left the manor, the invisible Fen in tow.

"Good," she said, pulling off the amulet and becoming visible. "I have the letter. I'll take this over to Delitian and meet you back at the inn, all right?" Julan agreed and, trying not to feel like she was betraying her great aunt, delivered the letter to Delitian at the palace.

"This is very interesting, Fen," the captain said, skimming over it with a self-satisfied smile that made Fen sick. "Forven Berano, Hloggar the Bloody, and Bedal Alen are obviously conspiring to assassinate King Helseth. This is treason, punishable by death. I will immediately draw up writs for their execution. You would do the king a great service if you would execute these traitors."

"E – Execute?" Fen choked out. Delitian raised one eyebrow.

"Yes, Princess. Surely you didn't think that King Helseth would allow these men to walk free? Ah – Dalem, go and get me three Royal Writs of Execution," he said to a pageboy passing through.

"The punishment for treason isn't death, though," Fen protested. "I've studied it. It's…banishment," she finished quietly.

"Princess, you must understand something. Mournhold is very clearly divided right now. There are those that support Helseth, and those that don't. Those that don't can't be allowed to live, because they pose threats to the monarchy like these three men do."

"According to my father, _I _posed a threat to the monarchy," Fen returned dryly.

"Perhaps you do," Delitian replied shortly. "But that is not for me to decide. Will you kill these traitors or not?" Fen swallowed.

"F – Fine. I'll take care of it." Delitian smiled as the pageboy returned, carrying the writs on a limeware platter.

"Good," he said, writing the traitors' names at the tops of the writs and handing them to her. "Off with you, then." Fen took the writs, sickened, and left the Palace, heading back through the darkening streets to the Winged Guar. Julan was in the bar, talking to two pretty Dunmer girls that were giggling madly. He must have seen her drawn face, for he quickly left one of the girls midsentence and crossed the room to her.

"What's happened?" he asked as the girls looked affronted and moved off to a different part of the smoky, noisy bar.

"Come in here," Fen muttered, her voice momentarily caught in her throat. She unlocked her room and they entered. Fen lit the candles with a shaking hand while Julan shut the door, looking quizzically at her. "Delitian wants me to execute the people that were in the letter."

"What?!" Julan said indignantly. "But that can't be –"

"The penalty for treason is banishment," she interjected quickly. "But he wouldn't hear of it."

"Fen," Julan said urgently, grabbing her hands. "You can't go on letting him manipulate you. Helseth tried to kill you, twice."

"I know, don't you think I know that?" Fen snapped, jerking her hands away and crossing the room anxiously. They were still shaking – she clasped them tightly. "But he's backing me into a corner, Julan. I don't have a choice."

"Of course you do," Julan replied angrily. "Let's just leave, Fen. Go back to Vvardenfell. Everyone loves you there, we can just go on doing what we were before without your father's shadow hanging over your head!"

"I can't," she said quickly. "I can't, Julan." She turned, sharply, to face him. "I love Vvardenfell, I really do, but I can't deny any longer that Mournhold is my home. I belong in this city, even if it doesn't want me. I need to be accepted here before I can be accepted anywhere else, and the fastest way to do that is to just do what Delitian asks of me."

"He's going to have you running in circles doing Helseth's dirty work until the only people left in Mournhold are the ones that support the monarchy!" Julan snarled. "Fen, you're digging your own grave! If you keep going like this, Helseth's going to have you up against a wall with a knife to your throat and he'll kill you for good! This isn't the way to being accepted, this is the way to being murdered!"

"Stop it!" Fen shouted, squeezing her eyes shut. "Just stop it!" She opened her eyes slowly, Julan was glaring at her, silent. "I'm going," she said suddenly, snatching her cloak from the bedpost. "I'll be back in a bit." She flung open the door and hurried outside, into the early nighttime streets of Godsreach, moving towards no particular goal, just wanting to be away from Julan and his fierce accusations.

Before long, the air was filled with the bubble of laughter and muffled talking, and, looking up, Fen realized she stood before The Owl's Wineskin, an upper-class inn where many of the Palace courtiers dined in the evenings. She had been several times, on the rare occasions her father attended parties there, though entering it was out of the question – the risk of her being recognized was simply too great.

Fen was turning to leave when she heard a familiar voice call her name.

"Fenara! Fenara, is that you?" She turned back toward the inn, which was painfully alive with light and noise, and saw Plitinius Mero waddling towards her, his cheeks red and blotchy from drink, even in the near-darkness.

"Hello, Plitinius," Fen said, smiling slightly despite herself.

"My dear girl," he said, grasping her hands and swaying slightly on the spot. "Whatever are you doing out on the streets in the dark? Surely it's dangerous?"

"Hardly," Fen replied, and she slipped her hands out of Plitinius's and clenched them tightly. "Plitinius…" she said slowly. She took a deep breath. "Do you know where I could find three men called Forven Berano, Hloggar the Bloody, and Bedal Alen?"

"Certainly!" Plitinius said brightly. Behind him, the doors to The Owl's Wineskin opened and light poured out as three Dunmer gentlemen in fur-lined ruffs exited, heading toward the Palace. Fen shrank back further into the shadows. "Forven Berano's a real religious one, I'd check up by the Temple. Let's see, Hloggar the Bloody lives down in the West Sewers, and Bedal Alen is quite the bookworm. Last I remember he was courting the bookstore owner in the Great Bazaar. Check there."

"Thank you, Plitinius," she choked out. "I – I have to go."

"Any time, my dear girl, any time!" Plitinius called gleefully after her as she hurried through the streets toward the Temple Courtyard. It was nearing nine o' clock, but she couldn't return to the Winged Guar until the bloody task on her hands was finished.

The Temple Courtyard was mostly dark, save for a few spots of light around streetlamps planted picturesquely in the gardens that surrounded the Temple's massive berth. There were a few Dunmer coming down the stairs of the Temple together – the evening prayer must have just ended.

"Pardon, serjo," Fen said, stopping a tall Dunmer man in elegantly embroidered clothes. "Could you direct me to Forven Berano?" The man gazed at her suspiciously as the people around them filtered away.

"I am Forven Berano," he said, edging away from her. "But I don't see how that matters to you." There was an unpleasant lump in Fen's throat as she spoke.

"There – There is substantial evidence that you are part of a conspiracy to – to assassinate King Helseth. I have here –" Fen fumbled with her bag, despite her shaking fingers, "– a Royal writ for your execution." Forven's face drained of colour.

"This – must be some kind of mistake," he said haltingly, starting to move away from her faster now. "I have never – I _would _never –" Fen started to raise her hands, to finish him peacefully with a word, but they were shaking uncontrollably. She was acting no better than the Dark Brotherhood, murdering someone for wanting her own, bloodthirsty father to be dead. Fen dropped her hands.

"I'm not going to kill you," she said, and Forven froze.

"You're – You're not?"

"No." Fen took a deep breath. "But if I do not, someone else will. I suggest you get out of Mournhold as soon as you can. Now."

"Oh, gods, _thank_ you!" he exclaimed, dropping to his knees and clutching her hands. "Blessings of the Nine, and Almsivi, and anything else you like! Thank gods I have a Mark set. I'll be gone instantly," he said quickly, scrambling to his feet, "and I assure you, I will never betray your mercy! Thank you!" With that, he cast Recall and was gone in a shower of white sparks, leaving Fen standing by the stairs dark of the Temple, her only company a tiny Bosmer man in ragged dress a little ways away under a street lamp, glaring at her suspiciously.

With a new confidence that mingled with dread at the treason she herself had just committed, Fen made her way down to the West Sewers under the Great Bazaar, where she found Hloggar the Bloody, a heavyset Nord man that was busy scalping a goblin on the sewer floor.

"Yeah, I'm Hloggar," he said gruffly when she asked. "What are you going to do about it?"

"There is a substantial amount of evidence of treason against you," Fen said, crossing her arms and trying not to look at the goblin corpse Hloggar was kneeling over.

"So?"

"I'm here to warn you to get out of the city before someone comes to dispatch you for it." Hloggar stood suddenly, gripping the goblin scalp by its scant, greasy hair in one meaty fist.

"I don't get it," he said, his forehead bunching up confusedly. "Don't you want to fight?"

"No."

"Oh! Wait! I see," he said suddenly. "You are a _good_ guy! Sure. I understand. So now I got to get lost. Fast, right?"

"Right. Very fast."

"Okay. Time to use that old Recall amulet. So long, then. And thanks." Still clutching his scalp, he Recalled, leaving Fen, once again, alone, though this time she had a scalped goblin for company.

It was late when Fen left the sewers and started toward the bookstore. Most shops in the Great Bazaar did not close until farther into the night due to the large amount of people that flocked there during all hours. Inside the bookstore, it was silent and tranquil, and Fen relished in the delightful smell of binding glue and old pages that filled her nose, reminding her of the library at the Palace where she used to spend much of her days. The wooden counter was unoccupied, so she moved along the shelves, browsing the volumes displayed there until she heard a noise.

"Oh! Muthsera, I apologize." Fen turned and saw a pretty young Dunmer woman, perhaps about Fen's age, had appeared from a back room, her arms full of books. "How may I help you?"

"I am looking for Bedal Alen," Fen said, and the woman suddenly looked terrified.

"He's not here," she said hastily. "I'm – I'm sorry, but he just went out. I don't know when he'll be back."

"Are you Sanaso?" Fen asked. She nodded stiffly, her eyes still wide and terrified. "I am not here to harm Bedal," she assured Sanaso. "But I do need to speak to him urgently. His life is in danger." The girl nodded, her face set.

"He's upstairs," Sanaso said, quickly coming out from behind the counter and leading Fen toward the staircase in the corner. They climbed it, and Fen found herself in a small reading room, where a red-haired Dunmer man sat flipping idly through a dusty-looking book.

"Who's this, Sanaso?" he asked, a bit worriedly, looking up as they entered.

"Serjo, my name is Fen. The king's Royal Guard have evidence that you are part of a conspiracy to kill Helseth." Bedal stood suddenly, knocking over his chair.

"It's not true," he said immediately, and Sanaso crossed the room to him, quickly. "Please, have mercy on us."

"I'm not here to kill you. But you need to get out of Mournhold immediately, or someone else will be along that will."

"Get the bags," Bedal said quickly to Sanaso, and she hurried into a closet behind them. "You have shown yourself an honorable Dunmer," he said, grasping Fen's hands. "I thank you. We will absent ourselves from Mournhold immediately. And I would die before I'd betray your generosity to me." Just then, Sanaso returned, clutching several heavy-looking cloth sacks. She handed two to Bedal and he gripped her hand tightly. "And now, if you'll excuse us, I believe an Almsivi Intervention will swiftly deliver us out of peril." Sanaso shot Fen a grateful smile, and they both vanished in a whirl of sparks. Feeling significantly better about allowing the conspirators to escape didn't help the plain truth – releasing them automatically labeled _her _a traitor, if she wasn't still one. She would have to do her best to convince Delitian that they had already escaped, though it sounded like a daunting task in her head.


	8. Chapter 8

Delitian was far from pleased by Fen's report.

"They've all escaped? All three?" he said incredulously when Fen told him. She nodded, her throat tight. "I don't believe this," the captain muttered, rubbing his eyes. "There must be a leak here at the palace. Did you give anyone else this information?"

"No," Fen said, perhaps too quickly. Delitian eyed her suspiciously.

"I'll tell the King you did your best, then," he told her slowly. "But I suppose there's another way you can help." Fen's heart was sinking. Despite her protests against Julan, she had half been hoping that Delitian would just tell her to leave, relieving her from this mess.

"What is it?"

"I want you to find the author of _The Common Tongue_."

"The broadsheet about my father?"

"The very one." Fen gave a small sigh of relief. At least there would be no murder involved – she hoped. "When we make official inquiries, people just look stupid and assure us they have no idea what we are talking about. We think you may have better luck – particularly if you approach less-reputable citizens – persons who place profit above honor."

_Like Helseth,_ Fen thought to herself.

"First we want you to ask around and discover who is writing these lies. Then we want you to find him and persuade him to stop printing lies. The manner of the persuasion is left to your discretion. You _will_ be discreet, of course," he said firmly. "We don't want to appear to be threatening the time-honored Imperial traditions of encouraging free speech."

"Right," Fen said coldly, turning to leave. "I'll take care of it." Feeling strongly that the anonymous writer probably wasn't printing much in the way of lies at all, Fen returned through the darkened streets to the Winged Guar, where the bar had, for the most part, emptied to a few late-night drinkers. She went straight to her room, eager to sleep, and found Julan still there, sitting on her bed, flipping through a book that had been on her table.

"Oh," he said, tossing it aside as Fen opened the door. "Hi. Um. I wanted to talk to you."

"What?" Fen said tiredly as she closed the door, wanting nothing more to fall into bed.

"Fen," Julan said, standing up and coming over to her. "I know you don't want to think about this, but you have to realize sooner or later that being this close to your father is a bad idea."

"Julan," Fen said, rubbing her eyes. "I don't want to deal with this right now."

"You're never going to want to deal with it!" Julan said earnestly. "Fen, I'm telling you this because I'm _worried _about you! Just being in this city is a huge risk, not to mention the fact that you're in and out of the Palace every day! It isn't safe!"

"I've done things that are a lot more dangerous than this."

"You're not listening to me," Julan said severely. "Fen, Helseth's tried to kill you twice. Who's to say he won't try again?"

"I have to do this, Julan," Fen told him. "I know it doesn't make any sense and I know I'll never be the Princess of Mournhold again, but…but I need to do this. And I need you to understand that." There was a long silence in which they both stared at one another, defiant, then Julan's eyes finally flicked down.

"Fine," he said in a resigned tone. "Fine. You're guarshit crazy, Fen, but if you're staying here then so am I." Fen gave him a small smile.

"Great. Get some rest. Tomorrow we have to go find the one who's writing those broadsheets about my father being a poisoner."

"So you…killed the traitors?" Julan asked nervously.

"I let them go. They all fled the city. Delitian never suspected a thing." Julan grinned broadly.

"What a fetcher," he said cheerfully, pulling open Fen's door. "Wake me up when we have to leave." Smiling, Fen shut the door after Julan and collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

The following morning, Fen roused Julan and they set off for the Great Bazaar, Fen having found that the marketplace is usually the best source of information. She sent Julan to the more bustling half of the Bazaar, figuring he would have better luck there, and she moved around the edges of the crowd around the theatre, watching for someone that looked as if they might tell her something.

At some point, Fen heard her name called, loudly, across the square. She thought for a moment it was Plitinius again, but instead a small Dunmer woman was hurrying towards her, her hair drawn up in an elegant twist.

"Sanaso?" Fen said, surprised, as the woman threw herself into Fen's arms.

"Lady Fen, how good to see you again!" the bookseller said excitedly.

"Where's Bedal?" Fen asked quickly, glancing around.

"He's in Firewatch. We're staying with my parents until we can set up a new bookshop somewhere. I had to come back to get the rest of my books, I just couldn't stand the thought of someone taking them. Bedal didn't want me to come."

"You shouldn't be here," Fen said quietly, directing Sanaso away from a nearby High Ordinator. "You could be recognized."

"I'm only here to get my books, then I'll be back in Firewatch. Come with me!" she said brightly, as if she had been best friends with Fen all her life. Fen followed her as she unlocked the door to the bookshop and slipped inside. It was dark and smelt a bit musty, a scent that hadn't been there yesterday.

"Oh, gods, it's barely been a day!" Sanaso exclaimed, closing the door behind Fen and going to open the shades over the windows. "Some of these books are quite old, though." She disappeared into the room behind the counter and Fen sat down in a small reading area in the corner. Sanaso reappeared a moment later, her arms full of empty leather sacks. She went to the first shelf and began piling books inside as Fen watched.

"Sanaso," Fen said slowly as the bookseller moved to the lower shelves.

"Mmm?"

"Have you read _The Common Tongue_?"

"Well…" Sanaso hesitated, then turned to face Fen. "I'll tell you, but just because you helped us so dearly. I've read it, and Bedal's read it, and it worries us."

"It worries me too," Fen replied quietly, not untruthfully. "I'm trying to find the person who's writing it."

"I'm afraid I don't know who that could be," Sanaso said, turning back to her books. "But I would ask someone that deals in shady business." She tied the sack shut and reached for another one. "Like a pawnbroker."

"Is there a pawnbroker in Mournhold?"

"Sure, on the other side of the square." Fen quickly stood up.

"Thank you, Sanaso, and I'm glad you and Bedal are safe, but I've got to go."

"Have a book," Sanaso said suddenly, gesturing to the shelves. "As thanks. You like books, don't you?"

"Oh, Sanaso, I couldn't –"

"Please, Fen? Here, you would like this one." Sanaso reached for a thick, simple-looking book bound in red, embossed with – she was surprised to see – her own family's crest. Fen took it and opened the cover to read the title. Her heart skipped a beat. _The Complete Real Barenziah. By Anonymous. _She looked back up at Sanaso, who was grinning broadly.

"There are only a few copies of the complete version. And that's the uncensored one, too."

"And this is about Queen Barenziah?" Fen said breathlessly, looking back down at the title page.

"Oh, haven't you read them before? They're really quite good, very well-written. Hard to find in Mournhold, too."

"Thank you," Fen said distractedly, closing the book. "Um – I'll see you later, then, Sanaso."

"Thank you again!" she said brightly as Fen went back outside. She slid _The Complete Real Barenziah _into her bag. She had never realized there was a biography of her grandmother other than the officially chartered one. Her father had made sure to keep close tabs on the books that entered the Palace library when she was young.

Fen didn't see Julan anywhere, so she crossed the square by herself to the pawnbroker's. It was dim and grimy inside, the shelves and tables piled with all manner of broken and unwanted objects. A stooped Argonian man in a stained white cotton shirt stood behind the cluttered counter, studying a cracked, dusty soulgem by the light of a greasy oil lamp.

"Um…excuse me." The Argonian looked up and his reptilian face contorted into a mean expression.

"You buying or selling?" he asked shortly, setting the soulgem down.

"Looking, actually. For information."

"We don't sell that here," he snapped back. "You buy, you sell, or you get out. No looking."

"Can I buy the information then?" she asked, reaching into her bag and extracting several septims. The Argonian eyed them greedily and she slid them across the counter.

"What do you want to know?" he growled, snatching the coins out of the air and reaching below the counter for a dented lockbox.

"I'm looking for the author of _The Common Tongue_."

"Here's what I've heard," the Argonian said in a steely voice, dropping the coins into his lockbox and shutting it again. "I've heard that the one who writes _The Common Tongue _is someone named Trels Varis. Now, this is not a name known to me personally. I make it a habit to know the names of people in Mournhold personally. And this one I do not know. And other people I talk to also do not know. Which is noteworthy in itself. I make the guess that this one is well-hid, and wants to stay well-hid. But where do I first hear about this one? In the Craftsmen's Hall. So maybe that is a one place to look."

"Thank you," Fen told him, and she quickly went back out into the warm brightness of the Bazaar.

"_There _you are!" Fen heard someone say, and Julan hurried over to her from where he had been sitting with his arm around a young Dunmer woman. "I've been looking everywhere."

"Looking hard, I see," Fen said as the Dunmer woman glared at Julan and stood to leave. "We've got to go to Godsreach. The pawnbroker said that he might be in the Craftsmen's Hall."

The Craftsmen's Hall was a large building situated near the Winged Guar. It housed all manner of builders and crafters, as the name suggested, and as they entered they were immediately accosted with the noise and bustle of the place as soot-covered apprentices hurried back and forth, their faces harried and their arms full. They managed to stop one or two people, but no one was much help when asked about Trels Varis. At some point, Fen lost track of Julan – he didn't reappear until she was arguing with a red-faced Nord by the forge.

"Hey," he said, tugging on her sleeve. "Come look at this." Fen left the Nord mid-sentence and followed Julan out of the thick of people and down a short hallway that ended in a single door. A sign was posted over the door, reading _Keep Out! _in thick, black ink.

"Well, _that's _conspicuous," Fen muttered, checking the door. It was, as she suspected, locked, though a quick spell and it clicked and swung open into a storage room so small that Fen could touch two walls at once with her arms outstretched. There was a large trapdoor set into the floor, and Fen and Julan exchanged a brief glance before Fen knelt to open it.

"_Excuse _me," an irritated voice said as Fen's feet touched the floor at the bottom. She turned and saw she was in some sort of office – there were several tables laden with parchment and quills and the shelves were stacked with untreated guar hide. Four or five Dunmer men sat around the tables, and they all looked like they had been busily at work until a few seconds ago – now they all stared at Fen. The man who had spoken, who sported a blaze of shoulder-length red hair, stood up abruptly and walked around the tables to Fen. "What are you doing here? And may I suggest you make your answer very clear, because this office and what we do here is a well-kept-secret. And we wish to keep it a secret, even if it means that you do not leave here alive." Julan dropped unceremoniously from the ladder behind Fen at that moment, and the red-haired Dunmer glared sternly at both of them.

"Are you Trels Varis?" Fen asked.

"What does it matter to you?"

"You will stop printing lies about King Helseth," Fen said firmly, and Trels Varis smiled slowly and walked a circle around Fen once, looking her up and down with a smug expression. Julan curled his hand around the pommel of this blade, and Fen touched his arm to stop him.

"Feranos, hand me that file," Trels Varis said, going over to the tables, and one of the Dunmer at the tables extracted a thick folder from beneath the parchment before him. "Let's see," Varis said slowly, opening the folder and flicking through it. "Ah. Here it is." He looked up at Fen, an uncomfortable smile on his face. "Allow me to formally welcome you to our office, _Princess_." Fen's heart skipped a beat.

"I – What are you talking about?" she said quickly, though her voice shook.

"You know exactly what I am talking about," Varis snapped, dropping the folder on the table behind him. "Our mission here is to expose the truth about Helseth to the people of Mournhold, and part of that truth is his illegitimate daughter. Trouble is, we have so much to reveal about him that we haven't gotten around to that lovely little tidbit yet." Fen realized her hands were shaking. This wasn't simply a matter of following Delitian's orders anymore – now it concerned her too.

"How did you find out?" she asked, still in half-disbelief. "It – It was kept a secret."

"We have our ways," Varis said simply. "And when this city finds out that their Princess is also the Nerevarine, Helseth will have a lovely fit."

"You can't do this."

"Who's to stop me?"

"I will," Fen said angrily. "If I have to cut down each one of you in turn I will. I won't let you endanger my family like this." A spark formed in her hand, a spell dancing in her fingertips. The men at the tables glanced at one another. Varis looked somewhat unnerved now. There was a brief silence in which everyone stood tense, waiting to see what Fen or Varis would do. Finally, Varis broke – he picked up the folder with Fen's information and carried it to the fireplace.

"I am an honorable man, Princess," he said, this time with sincerity in his voice. He tossed the folder into the fire, and it immediately started to blacken and curl around the edges. "I admire your blind dedication to your kin, however rotten those kin may be. We will stop printing about the Royal Family at once."

"Thank you," Fen said softly, and the sparks dancing around her fingers died.

"A word of warning," Varis said, crossing the room to her again. "Should you return here, we will be gone. We will not print anything about Helseth again, but that will not stop us from exposing the other lies of this city."

"I understand."

"Good. Begone, then." Fen and Julan climbed back up the trapdoor and made their way back to the Palace, not speaking. Varis's knowledge of her identity made her anxious, and she wondered nervously who else in Mournhold knew who she was.

Delitian was exceptionally pleased with Fen's confirmation that _The Common Tongue _would no longer print any material concerning the Royal Family.

"You show fine judgment, Princess, and a light touch," he said gesturing to a few pageboys that were passing through the Reception Chamber. They nodded and hurried off. "We are very satisfied with your service, and are pleased to give you a rich reward, and great honor besides." The pageboys returned, carrying a long, thin wooden crate between them. They moved to stand directly before Delitian, and he lifted the lid of the crate to reveal a long, black-and-red blade laying in a velvet cushion. "I give you a King's Oath Blade – exactly like those used by the Royal Guard. Only those sworn to the king's service and tested by great trials may use them. They bear deadly curses that kill thieves and traitors. I salute you, and welcome you into our brotherhood." Delitian lifted the sword from its cushion and held it out to Fen, who took it without showing her disgust.

"Thank you," she said as one of the pageboys took the crate under his arm and departed, while the other remained by Delitian's elbow.

"There's one other thing," Delitian added in feigned afterthought. "Queen Barenziah wishes to speak to you. Neldam will take you to her chambers." Fen's stomach dropped.

"_You told her_?" she hissed. "You _told _her I was here?!"

"I told no one," Delitian snapped. "I was telling her and the King of this anonymous aid's recent help with the traitors and she came to me privately and asked to meet with you."

"I can't," Fen said at once. "They can't know I'm here."

"I made an exception for you once, Princess," Delitian snapped. "Do not ask me to do it again. If you refuse the Queen's summons, I will be forced to jail you without trial." For a moment, they just glared at one another, then Fen gave a small nod.

"Fine," she muttered furiously. "I'll go."

"Good. Neldam, take them to the Queen's chambers," Delitian directed the pageboy, and he left down the hallway that led to the guard's quarters, leaving Fen and Julan alone with the page.

"This way," the page said, starting toward a door.

"One moment," Fen told him, and she turned to Julan. "Go back to the Winged Guar."

"No, Fen," Julan said, as if he had been expecting her to say this. "I'm not letting you walk into the Palace on your own. That's like walking into the lion's den."

"Please, Julan," Fen whispered, willing her voice to keep steady. "I need to do this alone." Understanding seemed to flare in Julan's eyes, and he nodded.

"Be careful." He turned and went back out into the darkening courtyard. Fen turned back to Neldam.

"Take me to the queen," she said, clenching her hands and forcing them not to shake. Neldam gave her a wildly confused look, then started down the corridor, Fen right behind.

Every step they took closer to Barenziah's rooms, the faster Fen's heart pounded in her chest. She had no idea what to expect – would her grandmother call the guards as soon as she saw Fen's face? Or worse – would she tell Helseth the moment Fen was gone? Fen kept her head down and hidden by her loose hair as she followed Neldam through the Palace, which was busy with courtiers and pages doing their evening duties. Fen heard dozens of familiar voices, and she had to struggle to keep herself from collapsing from fear on the tiled floor.

Finally, they stopped. Neldam knocked once on an achingly familiar door, and it was opened by Habanj, Barenziah's chambermaid.

"The one Queen Barenziah asked to see, from Delitian," Neldam said, and Habanj looked up at Fen. Fen dared not make eye contact with the Khajiit, lest she be recognized, but she slipped into the room at the chambermaid's gesture, keeping her head down. At once, she was accosted by the comforting smell of her grandmother, roses and binding glue, and she refused to look up at the room, knowing that it would bring out too many memories at once.

"Follow, please," Habanj said, and she walked towards the back of the main room to Barenziah's bedroom. Fen followed her slowly, drawing out each step until Habanj opened the door and stood back for Fen to go through. Struggling to block out all the memories that rushed in on her, Fen stepped inside and felt Habanj close the door on her back.

"Look so that I may see you." Fen slowly raised her eyes to the voice that had guided her through her childhood, and the moment she saw her grandmother's face everything came loose – tears sprang to her eyes and she fell into Barenziah's arms, sobbing out everything that had plagued her since she the second assassin.

Finally, when Fen felt she had no more tears to cry, Barenziah held her back, studying her face.

"Oh, Fen," she said softly, touching her granddaughter's cheek. "What has happened to you, child?"

"So much," Fen choked, and Barenziah steered her over to the fireplace, where there were two chairs that Fen had probably spent nearly half her life sitting in, listening to her grandmother talk. Fen sat down in the one on the left, the one that had always been hers, and closed her eyes, leaning back against the cushions. She felt like a cloth wrung dry of emotion. There was a small _chink _of silver and the sound of Barenziah settling herself in the other chair, as she had before so many times. Fen opened her eyes, which felt itchy and dry, and took in the elegance of her grandmother, with her smooth, age-defiant skin and her piles of snowy hair, the simple way she sat with her fern-green robe piled at her feet. It was a startling contrast to how Fen imagined _she _looked, ash-worn and beaten and bruised and scarred by her time on Vvardenfell.

"Drink," Barenziah said, gesturing to the table, where a tea tray was laid out. Fen obliged, and she clutched the cup with quavering hands. Barenziah studied her for a time, and Fen felt instantly relaxed with her grandmother's familiar gaze on her. "Tell me," Barenziah finally said, "what happened to you after you left Mournhold." After a moment, Fen slowly set down her cup and began to speak. She told her grandmother everything – her earliest days in the Mages Guild under Ranis Athrys, living in a dingy apartment in Balmora, gathering information for Caius Cosades, her ventures into Dwemer ruins, finding Julan at Ghostgate, climbing Red Mountain for the first time, traveling to the Urshilaku Camp, contracting and curing her Corprus disease, learning the words of the Nerevarine Prophecies. She spoke of taking Moon-and-Star from the Cavern of the Incarnate, of finding Han-Sashael's bones with Julan and Shani, of being named Hortator and Nerevarine, of her meeting with Vivec. She explained climbing Red Mountain again, this time to find Keening and Sunder, then assaulting the citadel of Dagoth Ur and destroying the Heart of Lorkhan. She left out nothing, recounted the entire previous year of her life under the unwavering attention of the queen of Mournhold. When she had finished, she took a small sip of her now-cold tea, her mouth dry as a bone.

"I had a feeling," Barenziah said softly. "When news reached Mournhold that the Nerevarine had cast down the false gods. When they said she called herself 'Fen,' and they knew nothing of her past."

"Do many people know?"

"Not in the Palace. I was the only one that ever called you Fen. To the rest, you are Princess Fenara, and you have been banished to never return again." Fen closed her eyes. Hearing her grandmother say it made her treason feel much more real. "Fen," Barenziah said, and it sounded odd to hear the world's name for her on her grandmother's lips. "I am so proud of you."

For a moment, Fen just stared at her grandmother, this beautiful, aged Dunmer with a face that was hardened with seeing so much, and her heart skipped a beat at the thought that _she _was proud of Fen. Fen, who had, for years, been certain she would live her entire life cloistered in the seclusion of the Palace, whose people would never even know her name, who had spent much of her youth staring longingly past the Palace walls. And Barenziah was proud of _her._

"Thank you," she whispered, and the ghost of a shadow appeared on her grandmother's lips. For a long while, they remained like that, both women watching one another silently, conveying so much through their near-identical eyes.

"I do not know what to do," Fen confessed finally. "I want Father to accept me, but I do not want to return to hiding in the Palace for my entire life." Barenziah studied her granddaughter thoughtfully for a moment, her penetrating eyes pensive.

"I cannot speak to him, for he will not listen," she told Fen. "Now, action is the only way that you can set things right. Mournhold is a town of two minds, my Fen. On the one hand, there is the monarchy, led by your father, and on the other there is the Temple, and the goddess Almalexia. It is hard to know whom you may trust. While there has been no open hostility between the two, there are always undercurrents that bear watching." Barenziah leaned her cheek on one hand, gazing into the dark ashes in the grate of the fireplace. "I would like you to make yourself known to the Temple, though not as a princess. See what you can learn. Speak to Fedris Hler. He is a powerful man in the Temple, a confidant of Almalexia." Fen smiled slightly despite herself.

"The Temple does not think much of me these days, Grandmother."

"Then it would be best if you did not tell them who you really are, wouldn't it? The Nerevarine _or _Helseth's daughter." Fen leaned back in her chair, staring at her scratched and scarred hands.

"I don't understand," she said after a moment. "When I was young, we always went to Temple. You told me stories of how Almalexia walked the streets and healed the sick. I…" Fen paused, looking back up at Barenziah. "I thought that, if anyone, she was the one of the Tribunal I could trust."

"For the Dunmer, Almalexia has always represented the motherly virtues of compassion and forgiveness, healing and protection, but in recent years, since the war with Dagoth Ur, she has become a harsher, more unsympathetic patron. Almalexia has changed, and many followers feel she has not changed for the better. A movement within the priesthood critical of current practices – the Dissident priests – has been ruthlessly suppressed by the Temple."

Before Fen could reply, there was a timid knock at the door. Barenziah stood sharply and opened it, revealing Habanj standing there, though her view of Fen was blocked by the Queen.

"The Lord King Helseth wishes to speak with Your Majesty," Fen heard Habanj say, and Barenziah tensed.

"Tell my son that I am preparing to go to dinner, and he will have plenty of time to speak with me there. There is no need for him to pester me while I am in study."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Habanj replied, and Barenziah turned back towards her granddaughter.

"You must leave now," she said softly. "And we cannot meet like this again, Fen." Fen stood slowly, and Barenziah enveloped her in her warm, strong arms, letting Fen breathe in the old scent of her silken, snow-white hair. "You are so strong," Barenziah whispered. "Do not let that strength die, my Fen." Barenziah stood back, cupping Fen's cheek in her hands and smiling, very faintly. "You are a smart girl, and you will be all right. Seek out Fedris Hler, and perhaps that will set you on your way toward your father's recognition." Fen nodded silently and Barenziah pulled at old cloak from her closet. "Cover your face," she said, handing Fen the cloak. "I will have the page lead you out through the kitchens, just in case, but it is still best you are not seen."

"I understand," Fen replied softly, and Barenziah touched her cheek once more.

"Be strong," she whispered, and with that Fen was led away into the labyrinthine corridors of the Palace, away from her grandmother and the comforting smell of roses and books.


	9. Chapter 9

Julan was waiting up anxiously for her in the Winged Guar, and though he looked relieved as she entered, he seemed to sense that she didn't want to talk. He left Fen alone, and she went straight to bed, willing her mind to forget the hopelessness of her situation.

Late the next morning, Fen briefly explained Barenziah's plan of learning from Fedris Hler the Temple. They crossed through the Plaza Brindisi Dorum to the Temple Courtyard under a bleak, grey sky, and there were few people out despite the hour being close to midday. Mournhold was so often sunny and bright that its inhabitants rarely spent their time outside on days such as this.

The Temple's high-ceilinged reception hall was just as it had been last time they were here, occupied by several busy-looking people and thick with a scholarly hush. Fen stared at the enormous gilded doors that led to Almalexia's chamber, a slight feeling of betrayal in her breast. She had admired Almalexia all her childhood, and to suddenly discover that the goddess had helped in murdering her formal self was more than disheartening.

"Excuse me," Fen said softly to a wizened old woman that was sweeping the floor. The woman looked sharply at Fen, glaring at her through the translucent folds of skin that draped over her brow.

"And what would you be wanting, a skinny little elf girl with a shaggy youth in tow?" she quipped in a strained voice. "Run off together, have you? Come to try and cleanse your soul through Almalexia's glory? The Lady of Mercy may have room in her heart for sinners and heathens, girl, but I do not." She shook a knobby, quavering finger at Fen.

"I'm looking for Fedris Hler, actually," Fen said, narrowing her eyes at the woman. "I was hoping you could tell me where I might find him?"

"Are you terrorizing our guests again, Varis?" someone said from behind them, and Fen and Julan turned to see a tall, imposing Dunmer man in a simple brown robe with glass pauldrons on both shoulders surveying them with a faint glimmer of amusement in his eye. "I am Fedris Hler," he added courteously to Fen and Julan. He gave them a small bow, never taking his eyes off Fen. "The Lady Almalexia honours piety, no matter the person you were before. How may I help you?"

Exceedingly aware of Varis's firm gaze on her back, Fen answered, "We were hoping to be of service to Almalexia somehow." Hler's scarred face lit up and Varis made a clucking noise of disapproval behind them.

"Ah! Truth-seekers! How wonderful. I am always aware of those who might be able to serve our Lady Almalexia. Few are worthy to do so. The Temple and the city is guarded by the High Ordinators, and the Hands fulfill other duties for the Lady. I am her Chief Steward." He raised his palms to the ceiling, opening his hands in an inviting gesture. "Now, if you wish to be of use, we have some matters to discuss." They followed Hler around to a large desk that stood before the great doors of Almalexia's sanctum, where he sat and folded his hands, staring up at Fen intently.

"Perhaps you have already met young King Hlaalu Helseth," he said in a disgusted tone. "A foul man, unworthy to sit on a throne. Still, he holds right of succession. The Lady must keep an ever-watchful eye on this King, though, lest he do something that would be detrimental to the Temple, our fair city, or perhaps all of Morrowind. Currently, there are concerns about some new recruits that Helseth seems to be training."

"New recruits?" Fen repeated curiously.

"A standing army is nothing new in the city, though it is largely unnecessary," Hler explained. "Mournhold is protected by her walls from the outside, and by our Lady Almalexia from within. None would dare mount an attack here. Still, tradition dictates that the king maintain an army. We believe that Helseth is raising quite a different sort of army...a goblin army."

For a moment, Fen could only stare at him. She knew that goblins resided in the dank sewers of the city, but the thought that her father was training them as an army…? She wasn't sure whether she should laugh or be worried.

"R – Really? I – er – wouldn't have expected that from him."

"Foul, vicious creatures," Hler spat. "No wonder Helseth has chosen them to be his footsoldiers. I know that the goblins are being trained nearby, though not where, exactly. Ask around the city about goblins. Someone will know. I wish for you to find the location of goblin training area. When you do, kill the warchiefs – there should be two. Sever the head of this army, and the rest will shatter like a scrib. You might rid the city of their two Altmer trainers, as well. Complete this task, and the Lady will be pleased."

"Altmer trainers?" Fen repeated in disbelief. This theory was becoming more ridiculous with every word Hler spoke.

"Traditionally, the Altmer have used the goblins to reinforce their armies. Why, I do not know. Rumor has it that Helseth has contracted two Altmer to train his goblin army. If you find these Altmer, it would be a service to rid the city of them as well."

"I'll….see what I can do then."

"Thank you," the steward said with that same odd smile, and he shooed them out of the Temple and into the grey late-morning light once more.

"I don't believe this," Fen said as soon as the colossal Temple doors slammed shut behind them, the sound echoing off the courtyard walls. "They honestly think that my father would train an army of goblins." She let out a single humourless laugh. She turned to Julan, expecting him to chime in with a derisive agreement, but he stood awkwardly by her side, saying nothing. "Julan?"

"Well…you have to admit, Fen, it's not unlikely."

"You can't be serious," Fen replied incredulously. "You too? You think Helseth would raise a standing army of those foul beasts?"

"He's tried to kill the Nerevarine twice," Julan said quietly. "It seems to me he's prepared to go pretty far just to secure his power." Fen didn't answer.

"Let's go," she muttered after a moment, and she led the way back to the Winged Guar, where they both changed clothes and gathered their things for another venture into the sewers beneath Mournhold.

Old Mournhold was, if possible, even more dingy than it had been the last time they entered it. The air was thick with the odor of defecation and rot, the walls and floor coated with slime, the fetid brown water barely moving through the tunnels. Fen used Azura's ring to give herself a constant Night-Eye, while Julan carried a torch through the dank halls.

They hadn't been in this part of the sewers before, and as they turned a corner they were immediately accosted by a Nix-Hound-sized creature with a leathery brown hide and an odd ridge along its back and a disorganized spew of cracked and yellowing tusks. Fen cast a frost spell at it while Julan attacked it with Han-Sashael's blade, and after several moments the creature fell to the sewer floor with a dull squelch.

"What in Mephala's name…?" Julan murmured, and Fen knelt beside the creature in the filth, examining its glassy yellow eye.

"This is a Durzog," she said at once.

"How do you know that?"

"I had a pet one when I was small," Fen told him, standing up. "They breed tame ones that grow no bigger than a hound. I kept him in the drawing room."

"And I thought important people just grew up with cats," Julan snorted as they stepped over the enormous corpse of the wild Durzog. They had barely made it down another hall when another leather-skinned creature started towards them, although this one was quite different from the Durzog.

The goblin was about as tall as Fen's shoulder, stooped over with its dull yellow eyes glaring and its knuckles dragging on the stone floor. Its round head was covered by a leather cap and a makeshift burlap tunic covered its emaciated torso. Despite the pauldrons on its narrow shoulders and the bandages around its long feet, the creature looked spindly and fragile as it limped toward them with a sword that looked as if it had been whittled from bone.

Fen cast a simple fire spell she had bought at it, one that would have brought a corprus stalker down in seconds. The goblin, however, was only briefly engulfed by the fire before the spell faded prematurely and the creature continued toward them, not breaking a stride.

"They must be resistant to fire," Fen muttered, but Julan suddenly raced past her, Han-Sashael's sword aloft. The goblin sprang into a sudden battle position, unexpectedly, and began to parry with Julan using surprising skill with its bone sword, clearly strong despite its brittle appearance. Fen moved around to the other side of the goblin, opting for a frost spell instead, and they had soon cut it down to an unsightly lump upon the floor.

They continued down through the tunnels of Old Mournhold, which gradually turned from the rank sewers to dim caverns. There were more goblins at each twist in the path, and while their combined abilities managed to put most of them down, they had to pause several times so that Fen could extract a couple of healing potions before they moved on.

At some point several hours after they had first entered the sewers, their footsteps began to echo more loudly than was normal. They turned a corner and found the tunnel opened up to a cavern that was so enormous it was almost completely in shadow. They proceeded with caution and were soon on a precipice overlooking the huge grotto that must have been the heart of Old Mournhold, as it was decorated with the grimy ruins of the once-glorious, swirling buildings.

There were also a great number of goblins milling about the ruins, and Fen and Julan resigned to deal with them with spell and bow from the cliff before descending.

"Gods," Fen muttered, her voice echoing many times off of the high rock walls.

"This place is huge," Julan added, and he cast a sidelong glance at her. Fen knew what he was thinking – it would be hard to deny the possibility of Helseth's goblin army now that she could see they had a place to train and congregate.

"I don't think any of them are the warchiefs," Fen said firmly, determined to prove Fedris Hler and Julan wrong. "Let's keep looking."

They soon discovered a door that led into a low-ceilinged ruin similar to the one they had found the Dark Brotherhood in. This ruin was clogged with goblins and Durzogs, and Fen found she was running out of health potions faster than she would have liked.

"Come on," she muttered, closing her bag and peering down a dim hallway. "This is the only one we haven't tried yet." Fen led the way down the hall, squinting despite the Night-Eye from the ring. As they neared the centre of the passage, Fen suddenly felt her foot sink deeper down on a ratty rug then she would have expected. Not even a second later, she realized that this was because there was nothing beneath the rug.

A startled scream ripped out from Fen's throat as she plummeted downward. Overhead she heard Julan shout and he shot past her, hitting the ground with a heavy grunt. Fen landed on top of him, the two of them sprawled haphazardly nearly two stories from where they'd fallen.

Before either of them could move, Fen became aware of heavy breathing coming from all around them. She slowly lifted her head. They were in a short hallway, completely blocked on both sides by throngs of goblins, staring at them confusedly with their wicked yellow eyes.

Fen scrambled to her feet, pulling Julan up after her. They stood with their backs pressed against each other's, a spell of God's Frost growing in Fen's hand and Han-Sashael's sword in Julan's. The goblins stared blankly at the two of them for a split second, then started forward in a dull green wave. Fen felt Julan brace himself at the same time she did, but the goblins suddenly froze where they were, their eyes wide.

"What's – What's going on?" Fen whispered, and she heard someone farther down the hallway give a sharp command in a strange tongue she had never heard before. At once, the goblins pushed past them, paying them no mind and lumbering as a group down the hall and out of sight. There was a noise from the end of the hall as the goblins disappeared, and suddenly a tall Altmer man in heavy-looking iron armour was there, his blade drawn as he glared darkly at them.

"They're weak to magic," Fen murmured quickly, and she let loose the God's Frost spell that had been building on her fingertips. A bitter chill filled the air, and when it cleared the Altmer was on the ground, gasping and dusted with frost, his skin burned red from the ice.

"Armion!" he shouted, quickly getting to his feet as Julan rushed forward. The Altmer began to parry fiercely with Julan while Fen kept a steady stream of Destruction spells going, gradually decreasing his strength. When at last he fell dead, there were several cuts across Julan's face and his armour was badly dented, but they were both, for the most part, unharmed.

"Gods," Julan breathed, dropping his blade with a ringing clatter to the floor and rotating his wrist around. "He was good."

"Here," Fen said, coming forward with a healing potion. Julan had just downed the bottle when they heard footsteps running down the hall. Julan hurriedly snatched up his sword again just as a second Altmer man appeared around the corner. He spotted his fellow's body on the floor before them and his face twisted in rage.

Fen's magicka was running low, and she pulled a staff enchanted with shock damage from her back. They met the Altmer halfway down the hall, and for a moment, everything was a confusion of sparks and light and clashing and blood. Then the Altmer fell, joining his fellow upon the ground.

"You okay?" Fen asked, glancing at Julan. He nodded, sheathing his sword and glancing at her.

"You're bleeding," he said, pointing to a spot right below her cheekbone. Fen brought her hand to her face and came away with dark blood on her fingers.

"I'm all right," she said, blotting the blood with her sleeve. "We need to save our health potions. And I already have a scar there from when Bolvyn Venim slapped me with his ebony gauntlet on, remember? Another one can't hurt." She glanced uneasily down at the Altmer bodies on the floor. "Let's keep going. We still have to find the two Warchiefs."

They continued through the tunnels, eventually exchanging the ruins for more cave-like tunnels that were wrought with goblins. In one round room, they were accosted by an enormous Durzog that looked like it was wearing the same kind of leather armour as the goblins. As soon as it fell dead, it revealed two enormous goblins with bulging, muscular arms and horned heads that scraped the ceiling, standing there with their beady eyes narrowed. Fen backed Julan up and immediately cast God's Frost at the Warchiefs, filling the cavern with a bitter cold.

When the frost cleared, the Warchiefs were still there, lumbering toward them with fury in their tiny eyes. Fen quickly summoned a Frost Atronach to help them, and for several moments there was a blurred confusion of noise and cold. After what seemed like ages, there were two heavy thuds, one after the other, and the warchiefs fell dead.

Fen swept one hand toward the Atronach and it faded, leaving her and Julan breathing heavily in the dark tunnel, surrounded by the corpses of the goblins and the Durzog.

"I'm assuming those were the Warchiefs?" Julan said faintly.

"Let's get out of here," Fen murmured, and they made their way back through the twisting tunnels and out into the darkness of Godsreach. "It's nearly midnight," Fen said, checking the watch inside her locket. "Let's go back to the inn. Fedris Hler can wait until morning. I'm exhausted."

They made their way back to the Winged Guar, where Fen immediately filled the bathtub in her room with steaming water and stripped off her sewer-soaked clothes. Every muscle in her body ached, and all she wanted to do was sleep and forget the disturbing evidence that pointed toward the goblin army rumour being undeniably true.


	10. Chapter 10

Fedris Hler greeted them with a curiously unsettling grin when they delivered the news of the goblin army.

"How wonderful," he said, looking slowly from Fen to Julan. Fen felt an unpleasant squirm in her stomach. "I have no doubt that Our Lady will be most appreciative." He gave Fen an expectant look.

"Um…I'm very glad," she said awkwardly, and Hler looked satisfied.

"As am I. Now, Pilgrim, I should like you to speak with Gavas Drin. He is the Lord Archcanon of Mournhold and was in consultation with Lady Almalexia this very morning. Perhaps he has a task for you. His office is just down that hall, there." Hler stood watching them with the same odd smile as they followed the finely tiled hall he indicated down a curving corridor to an arched doorway. High Ordinators flanked the doorway, and they let Fen and Julan pass with nothing more than identical cruel glares.

The office was large and spacious, and a long wooden desk laden with papers and books stood in its centre. The man seated there was dressed in a simple robe of moss-green, his graying hair slicked back from his face and oiled so it shone in the sunlight leaking in through the rosy windows. He set down his quill when they entered, studying them with somber eyes.

"You are the ones that Hler mentioned," he said at once, surveying them both without smiling. "Interesting. You are to be of service to Our Lady, and all would be displeased should you fail." His eyes narrowed. "Most especially me." Fen stared back at him, refusing to break eye contact. Drin was very clearly trying to intimidate her, and she had a sneaking suspicion that he realized who she was.

"Beneath this Temple, there is a large sewer system, built around the ruins of Old Mournhold," he went on, lacing his fingers together. "You smell like you may have spent some time there," he added with a sneer. Fen crossed her arms and did not reply. "Regardless, in these ruins, there lies a shrine. This shrine has been corrupted."

"Oh?"

"The Shrine of the Dead was once a place of great power," Drin went on. "It served as a channel to the ancestors, allowing the faithful to learn from them...to harness their power. Over the years, it has been forgotten, and it has grown sour."

"Maybe that's because you fetchers have started worshipping –" Julan started fiercely, and Fen stamped, hard, on his food. Drin glared at them darkly and continued.

"The power that radiates from the shrine has drawn hordes of the undead to it. The Shrine of the Dead must be cleansed, though certainly not by you. This task falls to one of Almalexia's chosen." The Archcanon turned away from them, towards one of the shelves at the back of the room. Fen realized that there was a jittery-looking Dunmer youth standing there, wringing his hands together. "Urvel," Drin said, and the Dunmer jumped and quickly crossed the room to stand by the Archcanon's side. Drin turned back to them.

"You will escort this young priest, Urvel Dulni, to the shrine. Protect him well. His experience is limited, but he is necessary to complete the ritual. The Shrine is protected by the Profane, powerful liches who feed from the power of the shrine. You must destroy them for Dulni to perform his duties." He glared sharply at them. "I stress again...protect Dulni at all costs. It is he who must perform the ceremony. If he is not able, there are no others." Beside him, Dulni was positively shaking. Drin turned to the young priest. "Do not just stand there quivering in your boots, you insipid fool," he said calmly, and Dulni started and scuffled over to Fen and Julan, mumbling apologies. Fen and Drin exchanged one more dark look towards one another, then she led Julan and Dulni from the room.

"What a s'wit," Julan said angrily as soon as they were out of earshot of the Ordinators. "You should have just finished him off, Fen."

"Somehow I don't think that fits the definition of 'learning from the Temple,'" Fen murmured as they stepped out into the bright daylight. She turned to Dulni. "Can you lead us to this Shrine?"

"Well…um…I kn - know it's in the s – s – sewers," he stammered frightfully, wringing his hands tightly.

"That's helpful," Julan scoffed, and Fen shot him a look.

"Drin said it was in Old Mournhold," she said, glancing towards the gateway into Godsreach. "We can go the same way we did to find the goblins."

"_G – Goblins_?!" Dulni shrieked hysterically, and a passing priestess shot an alarmed look at them.

"They're mostly gone now," Fen told him quickly. "It'll be fine." She checked the clock in her locket. "It's nearly ten. We ought to get going."

So with the shaking young priest in their wake, Fen and Julan climbed back down into the tepid water of the sewers and started to splash through the dark, odorous passages, not finding much of the way in clues as to where the Shrine was until they reached a large room that Fen guessed to be directly beneath the Temple. The sewer was guarded by a number of bonewalker-like creatures, animated skeletons swathed in tattered brown robes and hoods, drifting eerily from place to place without feet. As the three of them entered, two turned their hollow, unseeing eyes upon the trio, and Dulni let out a high-pitched shriek and ducked behind Julan.

The liches were not much a problem, Fen discovered – it was more their chilling presence that created issues, for every time they came across one Dulni would go into utter hysterics.

"Listen," Fen finally said as a well-placed shot by Julan from the Bonebiter bow put an end to one of the liches. "You need to relax. We're here to protect you. Nothing's going to happen."

"I – I know," Dulni stammered. "Lady Almalexia will protect me. She in Her wisdom that I am the one that must cleanse the Shrine, and she will watch over me while I do so."

"Then why are you screeching like a cliff racer every time something moves?" Julan snapped from the other side of the tunnel, where he was wrenching his arrow out of a fallen lich's skull. Dulni did not answer, but continued to hover anxiously behind them as they pressed forward.

They continued through a confusion of tunnels and ramshackle passages following the scent of rotting flesh and the ever-increasing barrage of liches that attempted to impede them.

After what felt like hours, they reached a low, rocky tunnel lit with smoking crimson lanterns from the ceiling. Dulni's face drained of colour as he stared up at the lanterns and unease crept into his face.

"This – I think this is it," he whispered, looking down at the tunnel, which curved off to the left. He was shaking more feverishly than ever.

"Stay behind us," Fen advised, and Dulni gladly complied as Fen and Julan led the way warily through the tunnel. They came out into a tall cavern lit by fuming red lanterns and dominated by a set of worn stone stairs that led up to a rocky platform. The floor in front of the stairs was littered with liches, and they all turned their strange, inhuman heads as Fen, Julan, and Dulni entered. Dulni let out a weak moan and Fen and Julan turned to see him collapse and lay motionless on the rocky floor.

"Gods," Julan muttered, pulling out his bow as they turned back to the advancing liches. They stood guard over Dulni's prostrate form, taking down liches as they came, smoothly reducing them to piles of dust and tattered fabric. When the shrine was silent again, Julan kicked Dulni sharply in the stomach and his eyes snapped open as he wheezed.

"Are you all right?" Fen asked as Dulni shakily got to his feet, clearly winded.

"F – F – Fine…are all those…things gone?"

"Yes, no thanks to you," Julan said snidely, going to the other side of the shrine to look around.

"Do you know what you need to do?" Fen asked, and Dulni nodded, his jaw clenched.

"Our Lady will protect me," he said again, and he turned away from Fen and started up the stone stairs. Julan came to stand by Fen and they watched him climb to the platform, where some sort of an altar stood. For a long while, Dulni stood silently with his hands flat on the altar, murmuring low, unintelligible verses. After some time, he raised both his hands upward and a ball of bluish-white light appeared between them, throwing everything below it into shadow. The light expanded, dripping like honey over Dulni's arms and radiating outwards, racing down the stairs and coating the walls. It ran up Fen's boots and up her robe, over her skin, making her whole body glow. The entire chamber was coated in pure white light, so bright that Fen had to squint. Then Dulni clapped once and the light went out like a candle, leaving the cavern dark once more.

"That was amazing," Fen said truthfully as Dulni came back down the stairs. The red lanterns overhead had changed to a pure blue, and the sickly scarlet glow of the cavern was now deep and almost oceanic. Dulni said nothing, but stared silently at the cavern floor. Fen could sense Julan yearning to quip something, so she directed the three of them out of the shrine and up through the sewers until they found the Temple basement.

"Well, judging from your stench, I would say your task was performed successfully," Drin said, wrinkling his nose in disgust as they trooped into his office, all of them grimy and dribbling sewer water on the tiled floor. "Urvel," he said sharply, nodding his head to a shelf behind him, and the young priest started and hurried to fetch the box. "Take this Blessed Spear as a gift from Our Lady Almalexia," he said as Dulni opened the ornate wooden box and held it out to Fen. "To show her gratitude."

Feeling as if Drin would rather have them forcefully ejected from the Temple than reward them, Fen took the spear, sliding it onto her back alongside her staff. Dulni snapped the box shut and returned it to its shelf.

"Speak with Fedris Hler," Drin said with a bored sigh, picking up his quill again and writing without looking at them. "He usually has errands that must be completed by the lowly. Don't let him tell you he has nothing to be done. I'm sure there's something. Urvel, wash that stink off of yourself before you come back in here. And be quick about it, I need you to catalogue my library again." Fen and Julan left the office, followed by Dulni, and he quickly caught them before they parted ways.

"Thank you," he told them, and there was relief etched in every bit of his face. "For protecting me."

"It wasn't all that difficult, to be honest," Julan said, and Fen shot him a look.

"You were fantastic," she told him, and the priest beamed.

"Come visit me again sometime, won't you?" he said brightly. "Our Lady would approve, I'm sure." With that, he turned and disappeared down the hallway.

"He keeps talking about Almalexia as if she'll protect him," Fen told Julan in a low voice as they returned to the reception chamber. "You'd think she'd know better than to send an inexperienced young priest to cleanse a shrine."

"I don't think any of the Tribunal ever know what they're doing," Julan said simply. They stopped as they reached the reception chamber, for Fedris Hler was standing near the entrance to Almalexia's chapel, smiling unnervingly and looking expectant.

"I spoke with the Lady earlier today, and there may be something that one of your skill will be able to help with. The Lady Almalexia would like you to retrieve a powerful artifact – Barilzar's Mazed Band."

"Which is what, exactly?"

"All I know is that the goddess wants it returned," Hler said flippantly. "You'll find it in the ruins beneath the Temple. Search to the northwest in the sewers. There was a passageway in the Abandoned Crypt that had been blocked off by a cave-in, but Almalexia had the area cleared." He grinned strangely again. "As for the item itself, I don't really see why you'd need to know any more about it. If you must inquire, Gavas Drin will give you more details. I am terribly busy at the moment." Fen closed her eyes patiently.

"If you want this artifact at all, serjo, I suggest you tell me what you know about it _now,_" she told him, glaring at Hler. His odd smile faltered.

"Very well," he said, and for once the grin vanished. "Barilzar himself was a powerful mage...quite powerful, in fact. He created the band sometime in the middle of the Second Era, and soon after disappeared. The purpose of the artifact is unknown to me. All I know is that the Lady wants it. I can only assume it will allow her to better minister to her people, though I find that hard to imagine."

"Thank you," Fen snapped, and she turned sharply and exited the Temple, Julan close behind.

"I'm getting sick of the Temple," Julan said as they emerged into the gathering evening. "More than I used to be."

"Cheers to that," Fen muttered as they descended the stairs and made their way towards Godsreach. "I'm exhausted, let's hold off on this Mazed Band business until tomorrow." Julan agreed, and they had just reached the Winged Guar when Fen heard a familiar voice calling her name.

"You go on in," she told Julan, and she turned to see Plitinius Mero, once again, crossing the square towards her.

"Good day to you, Fenara!" he said brightly. He paused and looked up at the darkening sky in mock surprise. "Make that good eve! You're looking a bit tatty. Been down in the sewers again?"

"Unfortunately," Fen replied with a faint smile. She paused. "Plitinius, have you ever heard of Barilzar's Mazed Band?" Almost immediately, the Imperial's face drained of colour. His entire body stiffened, and his eyes grew wide with dread.

"Fenara!" he hissed, glancing around, his face pale. "You should not even speak of such an object!" Fen frowned. She had rarely seen Plitinius distressed before.

"Why?" He took her arm, pulled her away from the inn where the dinner crowd was beginning to gather.

"I did not mean to snap at you," he whispered, though he still looked terrified. "I have heard many tales about that ring and of the evil Barilzar who created it. It was meant to be a means of teleportation for the wizard, but it was much, much worse than that." Plitinius shook his head. "That ring was said to open gates to hellish planes, releasing creatures best left in nightmare. I've heard the ring was stripped of its power, and only a god could use it now and not be destroyed." He shook his head again, and Fen saw his hands were shaking. "The thought chills my bones." Before Fen could speak, there was a loud shredding sound and suddenly there were books scattering at her feet, glass breaking, potions spraying onto her robes.

"Oh, Gods, I'm sorry," she said quickly, throwing off her ripped bag and kneeling down.

"That's quite all right," Plitinius said distractedly as Fen gathered everything in her arms. Plitinius glanced down and his face brightened suddenly. He knelt down and picked up a book she'd missed, thick and leather-bound in red.

"Been reading this, have you?" he asked brightly, and Fen glanced up at him, her arms full of books. He turned the cover so she could see the title – _The Complete Real Barenziah. _

"Oh – um – no, actually. A friend gave that to me. I haven't gotten a chance to start it." She stood up, her arms full of potion-splattered books. "It's about my grandmother, isn't it? I can't think of any other Barenziah."

"Oh, yes, it's about your grandmother," Plitinius said with a broad smile. "And do you know who wrote it?"

"It's anonymous, isn't it?" Fen said distractedly, stooping to gather several enchanted rings she'd missed.

"Not to you, it isn't!" Plitinius laughed. Fen paused. She stood slowly.

"Did you…?"

"I did indeed!" he cried brightly. "I felt it my duty to give to history a true and honest account of her. The story I presented, while true, was perceived as scandalous. My exuberance for the tale was left unchecked by wisdom, and I fear I caused some damage to the woman, not to mention the Imperial family."

"Why didn't I ever know about this?" Fen asked incredulously.

"Your father thought it would be best if you were never told," he said with a slight scoff. "As I've said, the tale was a true one. However, the details within should probably not have been divulged as they were. There were details that were felt to be embarrassing to the Septim line, though it was not my intent for them to be so. The work was ordered banned, and I was to be executed. Were it not for the grace of the lady herself, I would long be in my grave."

"What do you mean?"

"You know that Queen Barenziah is many things, Fenara – but she is not shy, and she is not ashamed of how her life was led. She knew my work to be true, and I believe she felt a sense of amusement, if not satisfaction, at the tale's telling. She protected me from the Imperial family, and spread the word of my demise at her guards' hands. Since then, I have traveled with her under this name, acting as her scribe, her advisor, and dare I say...her friend. I could ask for no greater honor."

"That sounds like her," Fen said with a smile, proud of her grandmother's elegance.

"But now it is _your _turn, Fenara! I would simply _love _to chronicle the extraordinary life of Barenziah's granddaughter as well. The Nerevarine!" he shook his head, bemused. "I have already spoken to three other authors that aim to publish a biography of you, and I fully intend to be the first!"

"Perhaps later, Plitinius," Fen told him as he handed _The Complete Real Barenziah _back to her.

"Ah, yes, you still have many adventures to come, I'd imagine," he said understandingly. "Don't want to write it so soon that I don't get all the details! I'll let you be on your way, then," he added.

"Good-night, Plitinius," Fen said, hefting the books into her arms and going into the inn. It was crowded and smoky, and there were more people in than usual. Fen glanced around, puzzled, and squeezed through the mass to her room, where she dropped her books and the few potions she'd salvaged on the bed and sat down that the table to stitch her shredded bag back together.


	11. Chapter 11

She emerged out of the Temple into dazzling afternoon sun, and for a moment Fen had to stand and admire the sheer beauty of the city. Trees covered with pink flowers lined the courtyard, and the sweeping green marble walls shone with resplendent light as the sun struck them. The air was sweet and pleasantly cool, gently rustling the flowers in the trees and making the banners that hung around the Temple's doorway flutter halfheartedly. Fen slowly descended the sweeping marble stairs to where Julan waited.

"So?" he asked expectantly as Fen approached him.

"She was…interesting," Fen muttered, glancing back at the Temple, its twisted spires rising high into the air. "I couldn't tell if she knew who I was or not."

"What did she say?"

"She said the Mazed Band was very important, but she wouldn't tell me why…" Fen shook her head as they left the Temple. "I felt like a child, like she was explaining something to me that I couldn't understand."

"And does that really surprise you?" Julan asked as they started toward Godsreach, the late afternoon sun on their backs. "She killed you just so that she could be immortal. Sounds like something she would do, treat you like an imbecile."

"She killed Nerevar, not me," Fen corrected. They crossed through the great stone arch into Godsreach, and stopped abruptly as a group of barefooted children raced past, all of them clutching cylindrical lanterns of varying size.

"What's going on?" Julan asked blankly, and Fen saw he had looked up to see all of Godsreach was in the process of being bedecked with similar lanterns, being strung from streetlamp to streetlamp, rooftop to rooftop, lining either side of the wide streets. Then, quite suddenly, the realization struck her.

"I completely forgot!" Fen gasped, her hand flying to her chin in disbelief as two Dunmer women with crates full of paper lanterns passed them. "Tonight is the Day of Lights Festival!"

"The _Day_ of Lights?" Julan repeated quizzically, tapping a lantern that hung off a streetlamp as they passed it so it swayed.

"They call it that because the lights are so bright they make it seem like day."

"What _is _it?" Julan asked, following Fen as she started toward the street. "I've never heard of it."

"It's usually only celebrated in Daggerfall," Fen told him as a passing Breton man handed them both lanterns. "It's a day of prayer for good farming and good fishing in the year to come. My father lived in Daggerfall when he was young and grew up celebrating it, so when he came to Mournhold he brought the tradition here." She held up the lantern she had been given, painted with a simple blue fish. "See?" Julan looked down at his own lantern, decorated with a swirling design.

"Then what are these for?" he asked quizzically.

"At nightfall, my father and my grandmother used to stand on the terrace over the Plaza Brindisi Dorum and release the first lantern together. Once it got past the city walls, everyone else released theirs. The idea is that you say a prayer for your harvest and let it float up to take your prayer to the gods." She smiled. "There isn't much farming here, obviously, but it was fun to watch." Fen set her lantern in a blank space between two others on the road. "It won't start for a couple hours, yet," she told Julan. "But the best place to watch is the Bazaar." She led them back through the Plaza, which was beginning to crowd with people hanging strings of lights across the walls and around the fountain. A circle of lanterns stood around the statue of Almalexia and Mehrunes Dagon at its heart, and two Dunmer girls were stringing more lights across its supports.

The Bazaar was even more hectic. The centre of all the festivals held in Mournhold was the Great Bazaar, and there was a great multitude of people starting to gather at its heart. Fen and Julan went down into the crowd, and as the sky began to darken the festival spun into action.

It was as though the New Life Festival had exploded. Doorways and windows were all strung with lights, casting pools of brightness down to the cobbles below. People were dressed in their finest Temple clothes, and even the very poorest beggar could be seen wearing gold threads. Improvised bands of flute, harp, and lyre played wherever they could find a free space in the road. Children lit firecrackers in the streets and ran off, giggling, as they exploded and popped, startling those nearby. Street performers swallowed fire and turned scribs into flowers while spectators tossed Septims into their upturned hats.

"It's better than New Life," Fen shouted over the noise of the crowd, but her voice was lost in the excitement. The lamp-lighter boys had begun to make their rounds through the city, stooping at every lantern and making it flare to life with their small, harmless fire spells. Along the canal, the floating lanterns were tied down and they drifted cheerily back and forth as the boys climbed up to light them. "Look, there's the dancers," Fen said, pulling Julan through the crowd to the theatre, where a troupe of willowy Bosmer acrobats had usurped the stage and were climbing up and down a series of silk ribbons suspended magically in the air, swinging back and forth, linking arms and performing a series of complicated twists and flips.

Soon they were circled in a huge open space, through which some sort of long line dance had started, with the men and women linking arms and sashaying down in turns, laughing as they did so. The crowd around them clapped and passed around trays of tankards filled to the brim with frothy ale. The music grew louder and more raucous, and before Fen knew what was happening, someone was shoving past them to join the dance, and her ale flew out of her hands and then she was in the dance as well, and Julan had somehow gotten thrown into the line across from her. And then she was laughing and clapping with the rest of them, and when it was her turn she skipped across the line and danced down the centre with a handsome Dunmer lad, throwing back her head to laugh as he spun her at the end and they turned and danced back into the lines. When the lines circled around again, Julan was her partner, and he took her by the arm with more gusto than she had imagined he had and spun her down the row, clumsily stumbling at the end. The dance faltered as Julan tripped, and they plunged back into the crowd, laughing uncontrollably as someone shoved more ale at them.

Once night had truly fallen and the sky was smooth and black, dotted with tiny stars, the atmosphere in the festival began to change. Now it was expectant, people waiting excitedly for the first lantern to arise from behind the walls. More people moved through the thick crowds with boxes of lanterns, passing them out as they went. Fen received one with a guar's silhouette painted on it – Julan's was painted with a single line that they assumed was supposed to be a fishing pole.

"Come on," Fen muttered, pulling Julan out of the mess of people. "I know a better place." They ducked down a side alley, out of the stifling heat of the crowd, and around to the back of a row of shops where there was a short ladder up to someone's back balcony. Fen tucked her lantern under her arm and climbed the ladder, Julan just behind her, then vaulted up the short step to the roof. They went up the short slope and stopped at its peak, which stood just over the city walls. The top strip of roof was flat, and Fen sat down, her feet resting on the sloped roof in front of her, resting the delicate lantern in her lap.

"I was never allowed out on the terrace with my father and my grandmother, obviously," Fen told Julan as he sat down beside her. "So I would sneak out here to watch the lanterns go up." She stared out over the vastness of the city – from here they could see beyond the Bazaar and into the Plaza, see the twisting spires of the Temple, the arched rooftops of Godsreach, the sprawling Palace at the city's heart where Helseth and Barenziah were preparing to let the first lantern up. Fen cast a sideways glance at Julan.

"Better than spending New Life in Vos?" she asked, nudging him with her elbow.

"Much better," he replied with a smile. Fen stared out at the distant rooftop of the Temple, where Almalexia's acolytes were surely sitting in scorn of the Day of Lights Festival, as they always did.

"I expected her to be completely different," she muttered. "I mean, I thought that she would have kind of….I don't know, come to terms with her situation after the Heart was destroyed, but she's just like Vivec. She still thinks she can walk all over these people."

"That's because she's an idiot," Julan said lightly. Fen shot him a sideways glance.

"This festival…it seems to be the only time in the whole year that the people in Morrowind are…happy. Just completely and unrelentingly happy, like they don't even care." She picked at the fragile paper of the lantern in her lap. "It just…it makes me angry. That they could have had everything, they could have been so happy, if it weren't for the Tribunal. People always say the Dunmer are so sullen and grim, and I hate it." She stared out at the city, almost completely dark but so filled with life. "I'm supposed to protect these people. I want them to be happy." She glanced at Julan, staring straight out at the dark city, his eyes narrowed. He sighed.

"Look, Fen, pretty soon these people are going to realize that the Tribunal aren't doing any good for Morrowind, and when that happens they'll turn to you. Hell, most of them have already turned to you."

"But why are there still people that worship the Tribunal?" Fen murmured, rubbing her thumb against the paper side of the lantern. "When they _know _what's going on?"

"Some people are idiots," Julan told her. He turned to face her, bringing one knee up onto the roof. "Listen to me, Fen," he said firmly, and she turned to him. "You're going to put things right in this city, sooner or later. Don't doubt yourself. You'll get all of this sorted out, then these people will know that you're the one they need to look to. Okay?" Fen smiled slightly.

"Okay," she replied. Julan set his lantern down in between them and leaned over, hugging her. She put her lantern down beside his and breathed in his familiar, comforting scent. _I'm so lucky, _she thought to herself. _I'm so lucky that I have him._

Suddenly, from far below them, a great cheer erupted from the assembled. Fen and Julan broke apart and Fen saw what had caused the outburst – a single lantern with a pattern Fen knew was the Royal Family's seal had just risen up beyond the walls, a bright yellow circle drifting slowly toward the stars. At once, thousands of lanterns in the crowd below lit up and began to float out of peoples' hands, rising up to the cheer of the crowd. Fen and Julan's lanterns, too, magically flared to life, and they picked them up, releasing them into the air. A jubilant cry accompanied the thousands of lanterns drifting skyward. The sky was filled with drifting cylinders of light, chasing the first one up toward the stars.

"So did you pray for a good fishing season?" Julan teased as they watched the lanterns spin and float upward in a steadily expanding cloud of light.

"Now, if I told you what I prayed for, I'd hardly catch any fish," Fen replied jokingly, elbowing Julan in the side. They remained there, watching as the lanterns drifted upward in a golden train, sending a dazzling golden shadow over the city. Julan rested his hand over hers, and she smiled slightly in spite of herself as she stared out at the glowing cloud of lanterns. _You're going to put things right in this city, sooner or later._

_I will,_ she swore to herself, letting her gaze wander down to the crowd below, every face upturned and staring in wonder at the sight above. _I'll put things right, for them. For my people._ Fen and Julan were silent then, staring up in quiet understanding until the lanterns rose so far into the sky that they became mere stars among those that already shone. It had to have been well after midnight that the festivities ceased – though not intentionally.

It happened suddenly. There was a huge crash from the Plaza Brindisi Dorum, and only a split second of silence before high, shrill screams rose up from the district, the sounds of stone breaking and crumbling. Fen started suddenly, realizing she had been dozing off, her head leaning on Julan's shoulder.

"What was that?" she asked sharply. Julan's eyes snapped open, and he hurriedly blinked sleep out of them.

"What?" he said, glancing around.

"I heard –" Fen started, but she was cut off by another crash from the Plaza. More people were screaming now – running in confused knots away from the centre of the city. "Come on," she said quickly, getting to her feet and sliding down the back of the roof. There was another crumbling sound, this time accompanied by a mechanical-sounding, inhuman roar.

Fen and Julan ran out from behind the shops and into the street, which was choked with people hurriedly racing away from the Plaza. She caught one of them, a terrified-looking Dunmer man, by the arm.

"What's happening?" she asked him hurriedly, but he shoved her away and rejoined the throng. "Let's go," she shouted to Julan, and he nodded. They started to run against the flow of shrieking people, fighting towards the Plaza. When they reached it, a horrific sight reached their eyes.

The statue that stood at the centre of the Plaza was now only stubs of stonework – the rest of it was scattered in rough-hewn chunks around the fountain. There was smashed paper from the lanterns everywhere, most of it on fire. Viciously mauled bodies were strewn all across the space. And it was clear to see what was causing the havoc. Dozens of enormous creatures, each at least twice the size of a full-grown Durzog, rampaged through the square. There seemed to be two different types – one, a long, thin white one with bulging eyes and teeth as long as Fen's arm and another that was squat and muddy red with enormous flat feet that shoot the ground wherever they stepped. Both types of creatures seemed to be half put-together with machinery, with metal cogs and bolts portruding from their backs and connecting their necks to the rest of their bodies. Guards and High Ordinators fought them, trying unsuccessfully to beat back the monstrosities.

"You!" someone shouted, and Fen whirled around to see a Palace guard racing towards her. "Don't stand about! Take arms!" He raced into the fray, drawing his blade.

"Let's go," Fen breathed, and they followed the guard into the mess of creatures. Fen kept a steady spray of spells going whenever she was met with one of the strange creatures, and she knew Julan was doing the same with his blade. When the last creature finally fell, Fen heard someone send a page to the Palace. She glanced around. Fire still burned from the fallen lanterns, and there were more bodies lying near the fountain. The Plaza was utterly destroyed.

"What _are _these things?" she murmured, kneeling down beside one of the long-necked white ones. It was definitely put together with machinery, though this creature was far more technologically advanced than the centurions of Vvardenfell's Dwemer ruins. Fen reached out to touch its hide and her hand made contact with something slick and sticky. She drew it away sharply and saw that the entire body was coated in a colourless sort of slime.

"What the hell…?" Julan muttered, appearing over Fen's shoulder.

"I've never seen anything like this," she said, standing up and wiping her hand on her robe. "Never." A guard jogged up to them suddenly, holding his helmet under his arm. He looked disheveled and irritated.

"The captain of the guard wishes to see you," he said.

"Delitian?"

"Yes," the guard repeated slowly, as if Fen were an imbecile. "He wants to see the one that helped fight off the creatures. Straight away." Fen spared the strange creatures a final glance before she and Julan followed the guard back to the Palace, where Tienius Delitian was waiting in the reception chamber.

"I had a feeling it would be you," Delitian said, a slight look of distaste crossing his expression. The door clicked shut as the messenger left them alone. Fen narrowed her eyes.

"I would remind you, Captain, that while I am unable to use my title, I am still the Princess of this realm. I'd advise you to address me with more respect." Delitian said nothing, only glared darkly at her before continuing.

"Obviously, we can't allow these attacks to continue, but we need to know more about the source," he said, crossing his arms. "It seems the attacks originated from some Dwemer ruins that have been buried deep beneath Mournhold. The Memorial statue has been destroyed, and we've cleared a passage below. My reports tell me that the creatures that attacked were at least partially mechanical, so perhaps they were of Dwemer origin. I want you to explore these ruins, find out where these creatures have come from, and report back to me."

"Those creatures weren't Dwemer," Fen said at once. "I spent the entire last year of my life in and out of Dwemer ruins. Those were something else."

"I don't care what _you_ think they are," Delitian said shortly. "Princess," he added, his tone clipped and his gaze cold. "We need to know where they're coming from. Will you investigate the disturbance or not?" Fen felt Julan tense beside her.

"We will," she said, resting a hand on his arm to keep him from lashing out suddenly. Before Delitian could reply, Fen pulled Julan from the reception chamber.

The Plaza Brindisi Dorum was in no better shape than it had been when they left it. The creatures' corpses still covered the cobbles, walls were still in ruin, and flaming remnants of lanterns still burned. Even more High Ordinators and Royal Guards were there, and they let Fen and Julan approach the remains of the statue.

"They must have come out of here," Fen said, peering down to the space between Almalexia's robe and the detached feet of Mehrunes Dagon. There was an enormous hole there, leading down into the darkness, and rusty ladder snaking into the black space. "Let's go," she murmured, kneeling down and testing one foot on the top rung. It seemed to hold her weight fairly decently, so she continued down, Julan just behind.

They stepped down into a low, dark tunnel that turned sharply out of sight. A little ways away, Fen thought she could hear the faint _buzz _of a shock spell. She put a finger to her lips and Julan nodded once. Fen led the way down the tunnel, going around the bend. It dropped off suddenly, giving them a lofty view of the large Dwemer-style chamber below. Fen and Julan knelt behind a rock, out of sight of the extraordinary battle that was raging below them.

More of the strange creatures that had attacked the Plaza had flooded into the chamber, and there was a number of ancient-looking Dwemer centurions struggling to fight them off. The creatures seemed to have a shock effect on the centurions, and every time they struck one the entire chamber would light up with the flash of it.

"Mephala…" Julan whispered, leaning out past Fen.

"Those _aren't _Dwemer," she murmured in reply, narrowing her eyes at the fighting creatures. They watched for a split second more, then Fen motioned with her hand and they silently climbed back up to the Plaza. "I've never seen anything like that before," she said as they walked back to the Royal Palace. "What do you think –" But Fen was interrupted as a young page bowled into her, sending her staggering back and him sprawling to the ground.

"Watch where you're going, n'wah!" Julan shouted, and the boy scrambled to his feet, quickly snatching up his papers.

"Sorry – sorry, are you the one that the Captain sent to investigate the ruins?" he asked breathlessly, looking up at Fen.

"Yes," she replied slowly. "Why?"

"The King wants to see you," he said, continuing to pick up his papers. Fen froze.

"I – what did you say?"

"The King wants to see you," the boy repeated, giving her an odd look. "And you'd best go now, he was very impatient." Fen looked urgently at Julan.

"Let's go," he hissed, pulling her away from the page. "This isn't a game anymore, Fen. He knows." Fen glanced back at the page, staring at them impatiently.

"I – I don't –" she stammered, taken aback.

"I'm supposed to take you to the King," the boy insisted.

"Listen, idiot," Julan said sharply. "You say one more word and I'll hold your face in that fountain until you're bloated, all right?"

"Is there a problem?" All three of them looked up. Two Royal Guards had appeared, glancing suspiciously from Julan to the page.

"I have orders to take her to the King," the page said insistently, nodding to Fen.

"Then to the King she goes," one of the guards said.

"No," Julan interjected at once. He turned to her. "Fen, come on. Cast recall."

"Teleportation magic doesn't work in Mournhold," Fen whispered, her voice hoarse.

"We can take the both of you in wearing shackles if we have to," the second guard said suddenly. "Both of you – let's go." And so, with the pageboy smugly in the lead, Fen and Julan were taken back through the Plaza towards the Palace, neither of them daring to speak with the Royal Guards breathing down their necks. Fen felt herself creeping closer and closer to hysteria with every step. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was being led to her deathbed.

"The King wants to see her alone," one of the guards outside the antechamber leading to the Throne Room told Julan when they reached it. "You stay out here."

"No," Julan said at once, turning to Fen. "No, I'll let you walk into Dagoth Ur alone, but I won't let you do this alone, Fen. Not this."

"Please don't," Fen whispered, clutching his hands and realizing hers were shaking. "Please don't leave me, Julan." The guard reached forward suddenly, wrenching them apart.

"Get out," he said curtly to Julan, and before Fen could act she had been ushered through into the antechamber, despite her and Julan's cries of protest. The door to the antechamber slammed, and Fen heard a key in the lock.

"No," she whispered, frantically scrabbling at the door. "No, no, no, no, no." She turned around to look at the small antechamber. There had to be a way out. No windows, no doors except the one leading out and the one leading to the throne room. Could there be a hidden trapdoor? She was about to lift the rug when a thought struck her.

_Pretty soon these people are going to realize that the Tribunal aren't doing any good for Morrowind, and when that happens they'll turn to you._

Fen took a deep breath and straightened up. She was the Princess of Mournhold, the sole heir to the Throne of Morrowind, the reincarnation of Lord Nerevar Indoril, the slayer of Dagoth Ur. One man could not terrify her. But it would be foolish to walk in as Fenara….

Fen reached into her newly-mended bag, finding Gildan's old headscarf that she had used while traveling in the Ashlands. The scarf was weather-beaten and worn now, but it would serve the purpose. Pushing her hair out of her face, Fen draped the scarf around her shoulders and her nose and mouth, leaving her eyes the only exposed part of her face. With that, she went to the door to the Throne Room and prepared to meet her father.


	12. Chapter 12

She emerged out of the Temple into dazzling afternoon sun, and for a moment Fen had to stand and admire the sheer beauty of the city. Trees covered with pink flowers lined the courtyard, and the sweeping green marble walls shone with resplendent light as the sun struck them. The air was sweet and pleasantly cool, gently rustling the flowers in the trees and making the banners that hung around the Temple's doorway flutter halfheartedly. Fen slowly descended the sweeping marble stairs to where Julan waited.

"So?" he asked expectantly as Fen approached him.

"She was…interesting," Fen muttered, glancing back at the Temple, its twisted spires rising high into the air. "I couldn't tell if she knew who I was or not."

"What did she say?"

"She said the Mazed Band was very important, but she wouldn't tell me why…" Fen shook her head as they left the Temple. "I felt like a child, like she was explaining something to me that I couldn't understand."

"And does that really surprise you?" Julan asked as they started toward Godsreach, the late afternoon sun on their backs. "She killed you just so that she could be immortal. Sounds like something she would do, treat you like an imbecile."

"She killed Nerevar, not me," Fen corrected. They crossed through the great stone arch into Godsreach, and stopped abruptly as a group of barefooted children raced past, all of them clutching cylindrical lanterns of varying size.

"What's going on?" Julan asked blankly, and Fen saw he had looked up to see all of Godsreach was in the process of being bedecked with similar lanterns, being strung from streetlamp to streetlamp, rooftop to rooftop, lining either side of the wide streets. Then, quite suddenly, the realization struck her.

"I completely forgot!" Fen gasped, her hand flying to her chin in disbelief as two Dunmer women with crates full of paper lanterns passed them. "Tonight is the Day of Lights Festival!"

"The _Day_ of Lights?" Julan repeated quizzically, tapping a lantern that hung off a streetlamp as they passed it so it swayed.

"They call it that because the lights are so bright they make it seem like day."

"What _is _it?" Julan asked, following Fen as she started toward the street. "I've never heard of it."

"It's usually only celebrated in Daggerfall," Fen told him as a passing Breton man handed them both lanterns. "It's a day of prayer for good farming and good fishing in the year to come. My father lived in Daggerfall when he was young and grew up celebrating it, so when he came to Mournhold he brought the tradition here." She held up the lantern she had been given, painted with a simple blue fish. "See?" Julan looked down at his own lantern, decorated with a swirling design.

"Then what are these for?" he asked quizzically.

"At nightfall, my father and my grandmother used to stand on the terrace over the Plaza Brindisi Dorum and release the first lantern together. Once it got past the city walls, everyone else released theirs. The idea is that you say a prayer for your harvest and let it float up to take your prayer to the gods." She smiled. "There isn't much farming here, obviously, but it was fun to watch." Fen set her lantern in a blank space between two others on the road. "It won't start for a couple hours, yet," she told Julan. "But the best place to watch is the Bazaar." She led them back through the Plaza, which was beginning to crowd with people hanging strings of lights across the walls and around the fountain. A circle of lanterns stood around the statue of Almalexia and Mehrunes Dagon at its heart, and two Dunmer girls were stringing more lights across its supports.

The Bazaar was even more hectic. The centre of all the festivals held in Mournhold was the Great Bazaar, and there was a great multitude of people starting to gather at its heart. Fen and Julan went down into the crowd, and as the sky began to darken the festival spun into action.

It was as though the New Life Festival had exploded. Doorways and windows were all strung with lights, casting pools of brightness down to the cobbles below. People were dressed in their finest Temple clothes, and even the very poorest beggar could be seen wearing gold threads. Improvised bands of flute, harp, and lyre played wherever they could find a free space in the road. Children lit firecrackers in the streets and ran off, giggling, as they exploded and popped, startling those nearby. Street performers swallowed fire and turned scribs into flowers while spectators tossed Septims into their upturned hats.

"It's better than New Life," Fen shouted over the noise of the crowd, but her voice was lost in the excitement. The lamp-lighter boys had begun to make their rounds through the city, stooping at every lantern and making it flare to life with their small, harmless fire spells. Along the canal, the floating lanterns were tied down and they drifted cheerily back and forth as the boys climbed up to light them. "Look, there's the dancers," Fen said, pulling Julan through the crowd to the theatre, where a troupe of willowy Bosmer acrobats had usurped the stage and were climbing up and down a series of silk ribbons suspended magically in the air, swinging back and forth, linking arms and performing a series of complicated twists and flips.

Soon they were circled in a huge open space, through which some sort of long line dance had started, with the men and women linking arms and sashaying down in turns, laughing as they did so. The crowd around them clapped and passed around trays of tankards filled to the brim with frothy ale. The music grew louder and more raucous, and before Fen knew what was happening, someone was shoving past them to join the dance, and her ale flew out of her hands and then she was in the dance as well, and Julan had somehow gotten thrown into the line across from her. And then she was laughing and clapping with the rest of them, and when it was her turn she skipped across the line and danced down the centre with a handsome Dunmer lad, throwing back her head to laugh as he spun her at the end and they turned and danced back into the lines. When the lines circled around again, Julan was her partner, and he took her by the arm with more gusto than she had imagined he had and spun her down the row, clumsily stumbling at the end. The dance faltered as Julan tripped, and they plunged back into the crowd, laughing uncontrollably as someone shoved more ale at them.

Once night had truly fallen and the sky was smooth and black, dotted with tiny stars, the atmosphere in the festival began to change. Now it was expectant, people waiting excitedly for the first lantern to arise from behind the walls. More people moved through the thick crowds with boxes of lanterns, passing them out as they went. Fen received one with a guar's silhouette painted on it – Julan's was painted with a single line that they assumed was supposed to be a fishing pole.

"Come on," Fen muttered, pulling Julan out of the mess of people. "I know a better place." They ducked down a side alley, out of the stifling heat of the crowd, and around to the back of a row of shops where there was a short ladder up to someone's back balcony. Fen tucked her lantern under her arm and climbed the ladder, Julan just behind her, then vaulted up the short step to the roof. They went up the short slope and stopped at its peak, which stood just over the city walls. The top strip of roof was flat, and Fen sat down, her feet resting on the sloped roof in front of her, resting the delicate lantern in her lap.

"I was never allowed out on the terrace with my father and my grandmother, obviously," Fen told Julan as he sat down beside her. "So I would sneak out here to watch the lanterns go up." She stared out over the vastness of the city – from here they could see beyond the Bazaar and into the Plaza, see the twisting spires of the Temple, the arched rooftops of Godsreach, the sprawling Palace at the city's heart where Helseth and Barenziah were preparing to let the first lantern up. Fen cast a sideways glance at Julan.

"Better than spending New Life in Vos?" she asked, nudging him with her elbow.

"Much better," he replied with a smile. Fen stared out at the distant rooftop of the Temple, where Almalexia's acolytes were surely sitting in scorn of the Day of Lights Festival, as they always did.

"I expected her to be completely different," she muttered. "I mean, I thought that she would have kind of….I don't know, come to terms with her situation after the Heart was destroyed, but she's just like Vivec. She still thinks she can walk all over these people."

"That's because she's an idiot," Julan said lightly. Fen shot him a sideways glance.

"This festival…it seems to be the only time in the whole year that the people in Morrowind are…happy. Just completely and unrelentingly happy, like they don't even care." She picked at the fragile paper of the lantern in her lap. "It just…it makes me angry. That they could have had everything, they could have been so happy, if it weren't for the Tribunal. People always say the Dunmer are so sullen and grim, and I hate it." She stared out at the city, almost completely dark but so filled with life. "I'm supposed to protect these people. I want them to be happy." She glanced at Julan, staring straight out at the dark city, his eyes narrowed. He sighed.

"Look, Fen, pretty soon these people are going to realize that the Tribunal aren't doing any good for Morrowind, and when that happens they'll turn to you. Hell, most of them have already turned to you."

"But why are there still people that worship the Tribunal?" Fen murmured, rubbing her thumb against the paper side of the lantern. "When they _know _what's going on?"

"Some people are idiots," Julan told her. He turned to face her, bringing one knee up onto the roof. "Listen to me, Fen," he said firmly, and she turned to him. "You're going to put things right in this city, sooner or later. Don't doubt yourself. You'll get all of this sorted out, then these people will know that you're the one they need to look to. Okay?" Fen smiled slightly.

"Okay," she replied. Julan set his lantern down in between them and leaned over, hugging her. She put her lantern down beside his and breathed in his familiar, comforting scent. _I'm so lucky, _she thought to herself. _I'm so lucky that I have him._

Suddenly, from far below them, a great cheer erupted from the assembled. Fen and Julan broke apart and Fen saw what had caused the outburst – a single lantern with a pattern Fen knew was the Royal Family's seal had just risen up beyond the walls, a bright yellow circle drifting slowly toward the stars. At once, thousands of lanterns in the crowd below lit up and began to float out of peoples' hands, rising up to the cheer of the crowd. Fen and Julan's lanterns, too, magically flared to life, and they picked them up, releasing them into the air. A jubilant cry accompanied the thousands of lanterns drifting skyward. The sky was filled with drifting cylinders of light, chasing the first one up toward the stars.

"So did you pray for a good fishing season?" Julan teased as they watched the lanterns spin and float upward in a steadily expanding cloud of light.

"Now, if I told you what I prayed for, I'd hardly catch any fish," Fen replied jokingly, elbowing Julan in the side. They remained there, watching as the lanterns drifted upward in a golden train, sending a dazzling golden shadow over the city. Julan rested his hand over hers, and she smiled slightly in spite of herself as she stared out at the glowing cloud of lanterns. _You're going to put things right in this city, sooner or later._

_I will,_ she swore to herself, letting her gaze wander down to the crowd below, every face upturned and staring in wonder at the sight above. _I'll put things right, for them. For my people._ Fen and Julan were silent then, staring up in quiet understanding until the lanterns rose so far into the sky that they became mere stars among those that already shone. It had to have been well after midnight that the festivities ceased – though not intentionally.

It happened suddenly. There was a huge crash from the Plaza Brindisi Dorum, and only a split second of silence before high, shrill screams rose up from the district, the sounds of stone breaking and crumbling. Fen started suddenly, realizing she had been dozing off, her head leaning on Julan's shoulder.

"What was that?" she asked sharply. Julan's eyes snapped open, and he hurriedly blinked sleep out of them.

"What?" he said, glancing around.

"I heard –" Fen started, but she was cut off by another crash from the Plaza. More people were screaming now – running in confused knots away from the centre of the city. "Come on," she said quickly, getting to her feet and sliding down the back of the roof. There was another crumbling sound, this time accompanied by a mechanical-sounding, inhuman roar.

Fen and Julan ran out from behind the shops and into the street, which was choked with people hurriedly racing away from the Plaza. She caught one of them, a terrified-looking Dunmer man, by the arm.

"What's happening?" she asked him hurriedly, but he shoved her away and rejoined the throng. "Let's go," she shouted to Julan, and he nodded. They started to run against the flow of shrieking people, fighting towards the Plaza. When they reached it, a horrific sight reached their eyes.

The statue that stood at the centre of the Plaza was now only stubs of stonework – the rest of it was scattered in rough-hewn chunks around the fountain. There was smashed paper from the lanterns everywhere, most of it on fire. Viciously mauled bodies were strewn all across the space. And it was clear to see what was causing the havoc. Dozens of enormous creatures, each at least twice the size of a full-grown Durzog, rampaged through the square. There seemed to be two different types – one, a long, thin white one with bulging eyes and teeth as long as Fen's arm and another that was squat and muddy red with enormous flat feet that shoot the ground wherever they stepped. Both types of creatures seemed to be half put-together with machinery, with metal cogs and bolts portruding from their backs and connecting their necks to the rest of their bodies. Guards and High Ordinators fought them, trying unsuccessfully to beat back the monstrosities.

"You!" someone shouted, and Fen whirled around to see a Palace guard racing towards her. "Don't stand about! Take arms!" He raced into the fray, drawing his blade.

"Let's go," Fen breathed, and they followed the guard into the mess of creatures. Fen kept a steady spray of spells going whenever she was met with one of the strange creatures, and she knew Julan was doing the same with his blade. When the last creature finally fell, Fen heard someone send a page to the Palace. She glanced around. Fire still burned from the fallen lanterns, and there were more bodies lying near the fountain. The Plaza was utterly destroyed.

"What _are _these things?" she murmured, kneeling down beside one of the long-necked white ones. It was definitely put together with machinery, though this creature was far more technologically advanced than the centurions of Vvardenfell's Dwemer ruins. Fen reached out to touch its hide and her hand made contact with something slick and sticky. She drew it away sharply and saw that the entire body was coated in a colourless sort of slime.

"What the hell…?" Julan muttered, appearing over Fen's shoulder.

"I've never seen anything like this," she said, standing up and wiping her hand on her robe. "Never." A guard jogged up to them suddenly, holding his helmet under his arm. He looked disheveled and irritated.

"The captain of the guard wishes to see you," he said.

"Delitian?"

"Yes," the guard repeated slowly, as if Fen were an imbecile. "He wants to see the one that helped fight off the creatures. Straight away." Fen spared the strange creatures a final glance before she and Julan followed the guard back to the Palace, where Tienius Delitian was waiting in the reception chamber.

"I had a feeling it would be you," Delitian said, a slight look of distaste crossing his expression. The door clicked shut as the messenger left them alone. Fen narrowed her eyes.

"I would remind you, Captain, that while I am unable to use my title, I am still the Princess of this realm. I'd advise you to address me with more respect." Delitian said nothing, only glared darkly at her before continuing.

"Obviously, we can't allow these attacks to continue, but we need to know more about the source," he said, crossing his arms. "It seems the attacks originated from some Dwemer ruins that have been buried deep beneath Mournhold. The Memorial statue has been destroyed, and we've cleared a passage below. My reports tell me that the creatures that attacked were at least partially mechanical, so perhaps they were of Dwemer origin. I want you to explore these ruins, find out where these creatures have come from, and report back to me."

"Those creatures weren't Dwemer," Fen said at once. "I spent the entire last year of my life in and out of Dwemer ruins. Those were something else."

"I don't care what _you_ think they are," Delitian said shortly. "Princess," he added, his tone clipped and his gaze cold. "We need to know where they're coming from. Will you investigate the disturbance or not?" Fen felt Julan tense beside her.

"We will," she said, resting a hand on his arm to keep him from lashing out suddenly. Before Delitian could reply, Fen pulled Julan from the reception chamber.

The Plaza Brindisi Dorum was in no better shape than it had been when they left it. The creatures' corpses still covered the cobbles, walls were still in ruin, and flaming remnants of lanterns still burned. Even more High Ordinators and Royal Guards were there, and they let Fen and Julan approach the remains of the statue.

"They must have come out of here," Fen said, peering down to the space between Almalexia's robe and the detached feet of Mehrunes Dagon. There was an enormous hole there, leading down into the darkness, and rusty ladder snaking into the black space. "Let's go," she murmured, kneeling down and testing one foot on the top rung. It seemed to hold her weight fairly decently, so she continued down, Julan just behind.

They stepped down into a low, dark tunnel that turned sharply out of sight. A little ways away, Fen thought she could hear the faint _buzz _of a shock spell. She put a finger to her lips and Julan nodded once. Fen led the way down the tunnel, going around the bend. It dropped off suddenly, giving them a lofty view of the large Dwemer-style chamber below. Fen and Julan knelt behind a rock, out of sight of the extraordinary battle that was raging below them.

More of the strange creatures that had attacked the Plaza had flooded into the chamber, and there was a number of ancient-looking Dwemer centurions struggling to fight them off. The creatures seemed to have a shock effect on the centurions, and every time they struck one the entire chamber would light up with the flash of it.

"Mephala…" Julan whispered, leaning out past Fen.

"Those _aren't _Dwemer," she murmured in reply, narrowing her eyes at the fighting creatures. They watched for a split second more, then Fen motioned with her hand and they silently climbed back up to the Plaza. "I've never seen anything like that before," she said as they walked back to the Royal Palace. "What do you think –" But Fen was interrupted as a young page bowled into her, sending her staggering back and him sprawling to the ground.

"Watch where you're going, n'wah!" Julan shouted, and the boy scrambled to his feet, quickly snatching up his papers.

"Sorry – sorry, are you the one that the Captain sent to investigate the ruins?" he asked breathlessly, looking up at Fen.

"Yes," she replied slowly. "Why?"

"The King wants to see you," he said, continuing to pick up his papers. Fen froze.

"I – what did you say?"

"The King wants to see you," the boy repeated, giving her an odd look. "And you'd best go now, he was very impatient." Fen looked urgently at Julan.

"Let's go," he hissed, pulling her away from the page. "This isn't a game anymore, Fen. He knows." Fen glanced back at the page, staring at them impatiently.

"I – I don't –" she stammered, taken aback.

"I'm supposed to take you to the King," the boy insisted.

"Listen, idiot," Julan said sharply. "You say one more word and I'll hold your face in that fountain until you're bloated, all right?"

"Is there a problem?" All three of them looked up. Two Royal Guards had appeared, glancing suspiciously from Julan to the page.

"I have orders to take her to the King," the page said insistently, nodding to Fen.

"Then to the King she goes," one of the guards said.

"No," Julan interjected at once. He turned to her. "Fen, come on. Cast recall."

"Teleportation magic doesn't work in Mournhold," Fen whispered, her voice hoarse.

"We can take the both of you in wearing shackles if we have to," the second guard said suddenly. "Both of you – let's go." And so, with the pageboy smugly in the lead, Fen and Julan were taken back through the Plaza towards the Palace, neither of them daring to speak with the Royal Guards breathing down their necks. Fen felt herself creeping closer and closer to hysteria with every step. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was being led to her deathbed.

"The King wants to see her alone," one of the guards outside the antechamber leading to the Throne Room told Julan when they reached it. "You stay out here."

"No," Julan said at once, turning to Fen. "No, I'll let you walk into Dagoth Ur alone, but I won't let you do this alone, Fen. Not this."

"Please don't," Fen whispered, clutching his hands and realizing hers were shaking. "Please don't leave me, Julan." The guard reached forward suddenly, wrenching them apart.

"Get out," he said curtly to Julan, and before Fen could act she had been ushered through into the antechamber, despite her and Julan's cries of protest. The door to the antechamber slammed, and Fen heard a key in the lock.

"No," she whispered, frantically scrabbling at the door. "No, no, no, no, no." She turned around to look at the small antechamber. There had to be a way out. No windows, no doors except the one leading out and the one leading to the throne room. Could there be a hidden trapdoor? She was about to lift the rug when a thought struck her.

_Pretty soon these people are going to realize that the Tribunal aren't doing any good for Morrowind, and when that happens they'll turn to you._

Fen took a deep breath and straightened up. She was the Princess of Mournhold, the sole heir to the Throne of Morrowind, the reincarnation of Lord Nerevar Indoril, the slayer of Dagoth Ur. One man could not terrify her. But it would be foolish to walk in as Fenara….

Fen reached into her newly-mended bag, finding Gildan's old headscarf that she had used while traveling in the Ashlands. The scarf was weather-beaten and worn now, but it would serve the purpose. Pushing her hair out of her face, Fen draped the scarf around her shoulders and her nose and mouth, leaving her eyes the only exposed part of her face. With that, she went to the door to the Throne Room and prepared to meet her father.


	13. Chapter 13

Fen did not look down, but neither did she look directly at her father. She had seen enough petition days to know that no average citizen of Mournhold was brave enough to stare the king straight on, regardless of how faithful they were to Almalexia. Instead, she kept her eyes carefully trained at the hem of his robe, her breath warm inside the scarf.

"Remove your head covering," a steward by the door said, sounding bored. Fen shook her head once. "What's this?" the steward hissed, and Fen looked over at him. "You are in the presence of the King of all Morrowind. Show respect."

"I cannot, Serjo," Fen said told him, purposely making her voice as harsh and guttural as she could. The steward looked startled.

"Why not?" he demanded, remembering himself. Fen heard Helseth give a noise of impatience.

"My face was badly burned as a child, and if my wounds were to be exposed they would fester and become infected in seconds." The steward looked slightly sickened, and Fen saw him glance at the king. Her heart skipped a beat as the steward glanced back at her and nodded. She turned to face the raised dais where the thrones of Queen Barenziah and King Helseth stood.

"So you're the one Tienius has been telling us about," he said, though his voice was bored. Fen's words caught momentarily in her throat. Just the sound of her father's voice, despite it being bored and uninterested, made her knees week and her eyes blur.

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Then I believe you can be of assistance to us. It is never easy for one to assume the throne, especially after the unfortunate set of circumstances that led to our beloved King Llethan's death. There are those who would seek to profit from such events, to take the opportunity to create unrest among the people. There are those, even, who would wish to see us dead."

"Yes, Your Grace." There was a short pause.

"Does this surprise you?" he asked finally. "Even now, there are those that would see our head on a pike. What better way to achieve one's goals than to have others remove those that would oppose you? Surely you have some understanding of this? In fact, we have recently been told of a plot against the throne." Fen's heart pounded painfully in her chest. The plot they knew about because of her.

"What sort of plot, Your Grace?"

"Some of my informants have learned of a possible assassination plot against our royal person. I would like more information on this. However, I do not want to compromise the safety of my guards or of my informant. I believe, however, you would be suitable for this matter." _I would be suitable,_ Fen thought bitterly. _As if I were an pawn in a chess game. _

"I wish for you to meet an informant of mine at a local cornerclub, The Winged Guar. You'll find it in Godsreach. He's an Orc, and shouldn't be hard to pick out. Find him, and ask him about his 'uncle's farm.' He'll know what it means. Then report back to me with your information." The King straightened up in his padded throne and addressed the steward. "Oh, Coltius, have a page take her to the healer. I think a revival of those burns should be a fair enough reward for your help so far."

"No," Fen said quickly, forgetting herself. There was utter silence from everyone in the room, the King, his countless personal guards, the stewards and courtiers that lined the walls. "I mean – their exposure would mean my death in seconds. We have seen every healer in the province. There is nothing to be done." She bowed her head. "It is a kind gesture, Your Highness, and I appreciate the offer, but knowing that I have helped the monarchy is a sufficient enough reward." For a long, endless moment, Helseth merely stared, as did the rest of the court. Then, finally, he sighed.

"Fine," the King said lazily, waving one hand. "Be off with you, then." Hardly daring to believe her good luck, Fen turned and walked quickly from the room. As soon as she reached the courtyard, she pulled the scarf down from around her face and found Julan, waiting anxiously by the doors.

"Thank the gods!" he exclaimed when he saw her. "How did you –" Fen held up one end of the scarf.

"He never even suspected me," she said, a relieved smile breaking out on her face despite herself. "But now we have to go back to the Winged Guar. There's an informant there I need to speak to about this assassination plot."

"What?" Julan said incredulously, jogging to keep up with Fen as she hurried from the courtyard. "I thought that was it. I thought we were leaving now. Going back to Vvardenfell."

"But I'm not finished here," Fen told him.

"Fen –" Julan started, and she swiftly cut him off.

"I know it's dangerous and I know he would kill me if he knew it was me," she told him at once. "But I'm being careful, and I need to finish this." She paused to glance at him. "Okay?" Julan's face was grim, but he nodded despite himself.

"I understand."

"Thank you," she said gratefully, although she did not voice what she was really thinking – a tiny, minute shred of her had hoped that Helseth would recognize her immediately, would call for the scarf to be pulled off so that she could be revealed to the court. She knew it would only result in her death, but the thought that she had stood directly in front of her father and not been seen as his daughter filled her with a sick sort of regret she could not shake off.

The Orc informant was easily to locate, sitting very conspicuously in the corner of the bar. He was enormous, especially for an Orc, and there were three broken chairs beside him, as if it had taken him some time to locate one that could hold his breadth.

"What do you want?" he snarled as they approached. His face was obscured by dark tattoos, piercings, and cracked and yellowed tusks portruding upward from his mouth.

"I'm to ask you about your uncle's farm," Fen said. The Orc rolled his eyes and gestured tiredly to two unbroken chairs nearby. Fen and Julan pulled them over to the table and sat.

"I get it. Code words. Whatever. Here's what you should know." He shifted his weight, took a long swig of greef, and leaned forward, banging his tankard down on the table. "Our king is a paranoid," he said simply, and Fen nodded in understanding. "I know, I know...it's treason to even think that sort of stuff, but it's true. He always thinks someone is out to get him. The man's had me checking into a different conspiracy every week for the last month. I keep telling him, 'You're king. You're gonna have enemies!' Does he listen?" The informant shook his head, exasperated. "This time, though, there might be something to it. I've found some disturbing information." Fen frowned.

"What information?" she asked.

"My sources tell me that there's a plot, but not against the king," he said grimly. "From what I've been able to gather, there will be an attempt made on the Queen Mother's life." Fen's eyes widened.

"Queen Barenziah?" she said incredulously, and the Orc nodded.

"I'm not sure who would want to target her – from what I know, she has no enemies in Mournhold – but that's what my sources are telling me."

"They're wrong," Fen told him immediately, standing up quickly. "No one would want to kill her."

"Suit yourself," the Orc said, taking another long drink.

When they returned to the Palace, Julan was, again, made to wait outside while Fen pulled Gildan's scarf over her face once more.

"I expected you would find out as much," Helseth said when Fen relayed the informant's information to him, her head low. The king swirled the wine he was drinking around in its goblet. "Other sources of mine indicate the same thing, and that the attempt will be made tonight."

"Tonight?" Fen whispered back to herself. Helseth did not hear her.

"My mother must be protected at all costs, but I do not wish to tip my hand to these assassins. Here is how we will protect Barenziah." He waved for a servant, who appeared at his side with a tray. Helseth drained the last of the wine and set the empty goblet upon the tray, then leaned forward.

"It would be unwise to station more guards outside her doors, as that would alert the killers to our knowledge," he said, and Fen hazarded a glance up to see his face was smooth and blank, the unreadable expression back. "Better to catch them in the act. One of our royal guards could be involved in this attempt, so they will be kept occupied elsewhere. You will stay in the antechamber outside our mother's chambers tomorrow evening, and deal with these assassins when they arrive. Close the door behind you and hide behind the screens, so as not to alert them to your presence. Do you understand?" Fen nodded once, and Helseth sat up. "Good. Return here by nightfall." With that, Fen was shown out to the courtyard, where she pulled off the scarf and met Julan, to whom she relayed the plan in a whisper as they walked to Godsreach.

"But you're in the Royal Family too," Julan muttered. "Why aren't there assassins crawling after _you_?"

"Until a few weeks ago, there were," Fen reminded him. "And besides, most people don't know I exist. These people like to be able to blame someone for their problems, so they blame Helseth." She paused. "And apparently, Barenziah as well."

"Well I'm coming with you this time," Julan said firmly. "Don't expect me to just sit in the bar again while you risk your life." Fen smiled slightly.

"I think you would like my grandmother, Julan."

When the sky outside turned a deep rose peppered with stars, Fen and Julan returned to the Palace, Fen's face carefully concealed once more. A page met them in the reception chamber and led them through to Barenziah's chambers, which was empty of all its usual guards and chambermaids. The outer chamber was unusually dark, all the candles snuffed out so that the only light was that which leaked in from the windows.

As the page closed the door behind them, the door to Barenziah's main chamber opened and the queen herself stood there, looking elegant as ever in a robe of deep crimson. Barenziah smiled as Fen pulled the scarf down.

"I had a feeling it was you," she said, coming over to them and resting a wizened hand on Fen's shoulder.

"Does Father know?"

"No," Barenziah replied, her face dark. "Though that man would not recognize his own mother if I stood with my back to him." She glanced at Julan, who was staring openly. "Are you the Ashlander that has traveled with my granddaughter?" she asked him, and Fen saw him wilt under her penetrating gaze.

"I – Yes, Y – Your Majesty."

"There's no need to stutter," Barenziah said dismissively. "I'm a mer just as you are, no different." Barenziah looked back to Fen. "So you will be the ones taking care of these assassins, I'm told?" Fen nodded. "Very well. Your father knows well enough that I can protect myself, thought it would be best not to argue. I think you will be able to handle yourself well, though, Fen."

"I believe so."

"Good." She kissed Fen on the forehead. "I have been up since the early hours of the dawn, and I must sleep now. Take care." She nodded to Julan. "And take care, friend." With that, she squeezed Fen's shoulder once and returned to her inner rooms, shutting the door with a soft click.

"Gods," Julan breathed out as Fen went to peer out the window. "She's incredible."

"I know," Fen replied, her chest swelling with pride. "I know she is." The courtyard had fallen into darkness now, and the room was almost completely dark. Fen and Julan went behind the thick ivory screens that sectioned off the back part of the room, where there was a round table and a few cupboards. They sat down at the table, out of sight of the main door. "They probably won't come for a while yet," she said, leaning back in her chair. "We may as well rest a while."

"You sleep," Julan offered. "I'll wake you up in an hour and we can switch." Fen agreed, and she laid her head down upon her arms, her eyes quickly drifting closed.


	14. Chapter 14

She felt strange and disoriented as she woke suddenly. Barenziah's outer chamber was pitch black and utterly silent. Beside her, Julan's head lay on the table, his back rising and falling in slumber.

Fen slowly lifted her head, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. Something had woken her. She quietly alighted from the chair and felt a shiver rush up her spine. Something moved in the room beyond. Fen knelt low and went to the screens, peering through a crack at the dark outer room. Three humanoid shapes, blacker than the room around them, moved silently, catlike, along the walls. Curved, silver blades glinted in their fists. Fen's heart thudded in her chest. Though she had dealt with them before, the Dark Brotherhood assassins still gave her an uneasy feeling.

"She's supposed to be in here somewhere," one of them whispered. "Behind the screens…"

Fen squeezed her eyes shut. _Still trying to kill me, Father? _She turned and touched Julan's arm once. He started awake, giving out a sharp intake of breath as he did so. Fen clamped her hand over his mouth and held stock still. She felt the assassins halt as well. Julan glanced at her, and she removed her hand slowly and nodded at the room beyond the screens. Silently, Julan stood from his chair and they went to the edge of the screens, waiting.

"I heard something," one of the assassins murmured, and there was a sharp sound, like someone sharply smacking someone else.

"Quiet," a second assassin hissed. "You heard nothing." They made it only a few steps closer to the screens before they were almost parallel, and Fen and Julan took this as their cue.

Fen attacked first, letting off a powerful detonation that made the room light up and the assassins stumble in surprise. She drew her staff as Julan pulled his blade, and they attacked together. Julan quickly took down the first assassin with a well-placed slice, and Fen knocked one to the ground with a crack of her staff. The third, however, was quicker, and he darted around and made to seize Fen from behind.

Before he could grab her, Fen cast a glamour at him, a spell that looked like a long sinewy shadow that curled around his legs and forced him to stumble. He turned back to them, and a glint of silver hissed through the air towards Julan. He dodged it, moving forward and grabbing the assassin's arm, throwing him down away from Fen. She aimed a potent shock spell straight at him, and he was reduced to a foul-smelling scorch mark upon the ground.

The second assassin that Fen had knocked aside had regained his footing now, and he lunged toward her, his dagger poised for her throat. Fen deflected his blow with a swift shield spell, reaching past his arm to spread her fingers on his chest, casting a disintegrate armour spell. The spell took hold at once, and his black Dark Brotherhood cuirass smouldered and melted away in a hiss of smoke. He looked down at his exposed chest in surprise, but had no time to act before Julan's sword point split through his middle. Julan yanked the sword out, stained with dark blood, and the last assassin fell to the tile floor.

Fen heard the door behind them open and she turned to see Barenziah in a dressing gown with her clouds of white hair loose around her shoulders, standing in the doorway, staring down at the bodies, her expression troubled.

"Are you both all right?" she asked, looking back up at them, but Fen barely had time to reply before the front door into the chamber burst open. Fen managed to pull Gildan's scarf over her head just as a whole host of guards in Palace armour ran in immediately swarming around the room. One of them managed to pull Fen and Julan aside and have them follow a page to the Throne Room to meet with Helseth again.

The Throne Room was dark, its candles all extinguished, all the intricate stonework coloured the same deep, nighttime blue. Helseth sat, covered by a dressing gown, his hair disheveled and surrounded by several attendants, upon his throne, watching as they approached.

"You were able to hold off the assassins," he said, his voice echoing on the high walls. There was a faint note of disappointment in his voice. The acoustics of the room felt off with only a few people occupying it. "Interesting. Perhaps the threat was not as great as it seemed. We commend you." Helseth inclined his head ever so slightly, and Fen repeated the gesture. "We are impressed with your efforts so far.

"Now, ah – what did you call yourself again?"

"Fedura Rindal, Your Highness," Fen told him, remembering the name she had used when she and Julan had posed as potential guards.

"Fedura, then. I require all those close to me to be powerful, able to defend me from any adversary. Perhaps you have met my personal bodyguard, Karrod?" Helseth gestured to his left, and the broad-shouldered, silent Redguard man Fen had seen most of her life nodded once and bowed his head. "Karrod is a perfect example: the finest fighter I have met in all my travels, and loyal to me to the death. I met him many years ago, a deaf and dumb child wandering the streets of Wayrest. The boy actually had the audacity to try and rob my stepsister, Elysana." A faint smirk played upon the king's lips. "I marveled at his courage, and took him into my employ. When a dog has been beaten, Fedura, it will lick the hand of one who feeds it even the most meager of scraps. Now he is my most loyal of servants, and one of my most deadly. I wish for you to fight my champion."

"Fight Karrod?" Fen repeated, careful to keep her voice low.

"That is correct. I have come to know you a bit, Fedura. I believe you can be of some use to me. But the plans I have will require someone of great strength or wit. Perhaps both. The time has come for you to prove this to me. You will return here at dawn, and you will duel Karrod. If you are able to defeat him, we will discuss my plans for you." Helseth's eyes darkened and he glanced to Fen's right, as if noticing Julan for the first time. "And who is this with you?"

"My brother, Athaso, Your Highness. He helped defeat the assassins that attacked Queen Barenziah."

"I don't care who he is. You realize he will not be allowed to aid you in the duel, yes?"

"I understand, Your Highness."

"Good. Then be back here at dawn." With that, Helseth waved them out of the dark, eerily quiet Throne Room.

To Fen's relief, Julan did not mention the fact that the assassins had been after Fen rather than the queen, though one glance at his face and it was clear he knew.


	15. Chapter 15

"You _will _let me fight this one alone, won't you?" Fen said to Julan early the next morning as they departed the Winged Guar. "It's just like the duel with Venim, they won't take me seriously if you help."

"How hard is this Karrod going to be for you to fight?"

"I've…well, I've seen him spar before." Fen didn't voice the rest of her thought. The few times she had seen Karrod fight, he had been deadly quick with the blade, moving with a powerful, brute force and taking down his opponent in seconds. He could have only gotten better since then.

"Same thing, then. I'll stay out of it, but if he's about to kill you I'm stepping in, I don't care what Helseth does. For all we know, he _knows _it's you and this is just another plot to do you in."

"Just stop it, Julan," Fen told him sharply. She was already jumpy enough as it is.

They were met in the Reception Chamber by a page and brought to the Throne Room, where Fen wore her scarf over her face. It was once again filled with courtiers and guards and messengers, and they all quieted and watched as Fen and Julan walked towards the throne where Helseth sat. Barenziah's throne was empty.

"Ah...you have come to meet Karrod in battle," Helseth said, straightening up as they approached. "Good for you." He made a smooth gesture, and Karrod stepped from behind the throne, his face expressionless. "Karrod is looking a bit under the weather today, but no matter. Perhaps you've heard that Karrod has never been defeated in battle?"

"I haven't, Your Grace."

"It's true," Helseth said smugly. "Amazing, don't you think? Regardless, this will be a fair fight. You may both use whatever weapons are at your disposal. I wish you both luck. None are to interfere, and you will begin on my command." He gave Julan a sharp glance and Julan moved out of the way to stand along the wall with the courtiers. Fen cast him what she hoped was a reassuring glance as Karrod stepped down towards her. Helseth signaled, and a low stone barrier went up around them. Karrod, completely unfazed, drew his blade, an ancient-looking, cruelly curved scimitar, and focused his dull eyes on Fen.

"Begin."

At once, Karrod moved swiftly forward, swinging his sword around towards Fen. She ducked out of the way, casting a shock spell that made Karrod stumble. But he quickly regained his footing and came toward her again. They repeated the cycle another time, then another. Karrod moved almost mechanically, not showing any sign of being pained by Fen's spells. All they did was make him falter, buy her an extra half second before he came at her again.

Fen abandoned the shock spells and she and Karrod circled each other slowly, Fen wracking her mind for a spell that could give her a leg up. In the split second she was distracted, Karrod moved forward, swiftly slashing at her arm with a side sweep of his sword. Fen gasped as the cruel metal stung her skin. Blood flecked the floor, and Fen quickly healed herself before diving out of the way of another of Karrod's attacks. One of the watching guards jeered loudly and several others followed suit.

Fen knew she wouldn't last long fighting like this – she was barely even fighting. Karrod clearly had some sort of protection against her spells, so she quickly reasoned that the only way for her to thwart him would be through melee. As Karrod came in for another swipe, Fen smoothly sidestepped, pulling her staff from her back. Perhaps she was better with magic, but she had worked with her staff for days to prepare to use Sunder on the Heart of Lorkhan. It would have to do.

The next time Karrod came round, Fen lifted her staff. His blade hit the ebony it was crafted from and bounced cleanly off. A faint look of surprise crossed his face, and Fen used the opportunity to step forward and swing the head of the staff towards his middle. It collided with a solid _thunk_, doing little more than denting his armour. Fen frowned as Karrod prepared for the next blow. She would have to aim for his head.

Fen ducked swiftly at Karrod's next strike and moved forward, lifting the staff. The two of them began to parry fiercely, and Fen kept her eyes trained on his, her view only broken by the flashes of ebony and steel as their weapons crashed together. Fen's staff and Karrod's sword locked, and they pushed against one another, never looking away. Fen jerked her staff away suddenly, surprising Karrod, and jabbed the butt of it down at the top of his foot, using all her strength. Karrod's face contorted in pain and he broke eye contact with her. In seconds, Fen had swung the staff over his shoulder and collided with his head in a loud _crack. _Karrod stumbled – his sword clattered to the ground in a flash of silver, he fell backwards, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth, a bruise already forming where the staff had struck. He landed heavily upon the bloodied stonework, flat on his back, and Fen pinned him there with the butt of the staff.

"Hold!" he said in a deep, gravelly voice, and Fen blinked, startled. "I am beaten." Slowly, she removed the staff and offered her hand. Karrod took it, and she pulled him up. He smiled as he grasped her hand firmly and shook it. Fen saw the courtiers and guards around the room were staring at one another in disbelief. "You are a great warrior, Fedura Rindal."

"Thank you," Fen said, still a little confused, and Karrod gave her a small smile before he moved away. The low barriers were gone, and servants were already coming forward to clean up the blood and scuffs from the flagstones. Helseth stared at Fen, distaste in his eye.

"I have seen you fight my champion, though I find it hard to imagine how you have succeeded," he said coldly. "I did not believe anyone could best Karrod, but you have shown me otherwise." Helseth shook his head. "And he speaks! There are depths to you, Fedura, that I will fathom in time. For now, you have proven yourself to me." He made a smooth gesture, and a servant came forward with an intricately engraved wooden box. Helseth turned to the servant and opened the box, then turned again so Fen could see what lay inside. It was an item she had seen countless times before, always on display in the upper reception hall – a long, thin glass dagger, glimmering faintly with enchantment, resting in its silken wraps.

"This is the Dagger of Symmachus," Helseth said, lifting the dagger out from the dark silk. The servant snapped the box shut and bowed away. "It belonged to my grandfather. Bear it with honour." He held the dagger out to Fen, and for a brief moment, their eyes connected. Fen felt a curious shiver of warmth run down her spine as they locked gazes, and she thought she saw something familiar flicker in her father's deep scarlet irises, identical to her own. But it was gone in a second, and she had looked away, the dagger in her hands.

"Thank you, Your Grace." Fen slid the dagger onto her belt and inclined her head, and Helseth nodded briefly.

"And now, I have more plans for you," he said, going back to his throne. "As I'm certain you know, Mournhold is one of the seats of power for the Tribunal. The goddess Almalexia resides here in her Temple, surrounded by her High Ordinators. I have no great love for Almalexia, her Ordinators, or the Tribunal of which she is a part. In light of recent events, I believe it is time to gather more information about them."

"If I may be bold, Your Grace, what events?"

"The attack on Mournhold was as unexpected to me as it was destructive to the city," Helseth explained with a sigh. "And I make it my business to remain forewarned of this sort of event. Many believed the attacking creatures to have been Dwemer constructs, but we know now that this is not the case. These creatures were beyond anything dreamt of by the Dwarves, creatures it would take the power of a god to create. I would like you to learn more about the attacks."

"How, Your Grace?"

"I believe that the only person who might shed more light on this situation is Almalexia herself," the king continued, fiddling idly with the gilded armrest of his throne. "All indications are that these creatures must be the constructs of Sotha Sil, and only Almalexia is likely to have information about him."

"Sotha Sil – the third member of the Tribunal?"

"What other Sotha Sil is there? I wish for you to speak to Almalexia, learn what she knows about the creatures, and report to me. There is no reason for the goddess to suspect that you and I may be allied. Use this to your advantage. Do not approach me again until you have learned all that you can." Fen stared downward, thinking. The destruction of the Heart had certainly taken a toll on the Tribunal, but was it enough for Sotha Sil to want to attack Mournhold?

"I would be honoured to help, Your Grace," she said, and with that she and Julan were waved away.

"Gods," Julan muttered. "It was like he _wanted _Karrod to do you in."

"I'm sure he did," Fen murmured back. "I never knew Karrod could talk, you know. He's lived in the Palace since before I was born, and I never heard him say a word."

It was nearing midmorning, and the sky was a dark, steel grey, ominously overcast. There were fewer people than usual out as they walked to the Temple District – dark weather was uncommon in Mournhold. Julan agreed, grudgingly, to wait outside as Fen spoke to Almalexia again. She crossed the Reception Hall and passed through the enormous doors, once again watching as the ball of light slowly dropped down to illuminate the goddess.

"Greetings, Fen," the goddess said serenely as Fen mounted the four stairs up onto her platform and went to stand before her. "It is good that you have come. I believe you may be of use to me." Fen said nothing, and Almalexia continued, "Since the horrendous attack on the city, there have been some alarming developments. One of the most troublesome has been a cult that has recently formed, led by a Dunmer named Eno Romari. They call themselves the End of Times. In these troubled times, I fear the cult is gaining in popularity."

"Why is that bad?" Fen said, yearning to ask why Almalexia was so opposed to people with different beliefs in Mournhold. The goddess smiled warmly, as if dealing with a particularly dim child.

"Very little is known about them yet, but there is one very disturbing fact we have learned. Many of their members have been found dead." Fen was not surprised. She had read of these sorts of cults before, the kind that believed a better life would be waiting for them if they died. Almalexia, however, cocked her head slightly, as if puzzled as to why Fen had not recoiled in horror. "At least seven of them have been found so far," she continued, her voice losing its superior tone and exchanging it with a darkly concerned one. "All dead, all in their homes. It appears they ingested a strong poison, and not even my magicks could revive those who were found. We must find out what drives this group, and rid my city of their presence. Speak with Meralyn Othan at the Great Bazaar; her brother Sevil was one of those found. Learn what you can about them, dear Fen, and of this Eno Romari. Take care with him, though. The words of a martyr cry louder than those of a zealot." With that, Almalexia waved a hand and Fen left through the circle of her silent, staring Ordinators and out onto the broad terrace just outside the Temple, where Julan was sitting on a stair, glaring that the people going inside with disgust.

"Look at all of them," he said scornfully, getting to his feet, his hair blowing lightly around his face in the wind that was beginning to pick up. The sky overhead was still ominous and grey. "So _convinced _that this fraud of a goddess will save them." One frail old man walking into the Temple with his wife cast Julan a venomous look, and Julan returned it coldly as the couple went inside.

"Let's try not to pick fights with anyone just now," Fen said, starting down the broad stairs. She relayed all that Almalexia had told her, and Julan looked, if possible, even more bitter.

"Of course she's trying to flatten anyone that doesn't worship her," he said scathingly as they crossed under the archway into the Great Bazaar, which felt strangely quiet. "I mean, a cult that kills people is bad and all, but _still_."

They soon located Meralyn Othan with the help of the few people that were out. Meralyn was a broad-shouldered Dunmer woman, tall in stature, wearing a simple brown frock and sweeping the doorstep of the clothier's shop. Her hair was drawn off her face in a sloppy twist, and her eyes were tired and drawn. As they approached, she stood back with her broom as if to let them pass into the shop, and she looked surprised when Fen said they wanted to talk to her.

"I don't finish my shift for another few hours," she told them, rubbing her thumb along the broom handle. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to come back later."

"I'm afraid it's urgent," Fen said. "It's about your brother. Sevil." Meralyn's face changed. Her eyes widened and her mouth hardened into a tight line.

"You've heard about my brother?" she said in a low voice. Fen nodded and her eyes were suddenly hot with fury. "All would be well if he hadn't fallen in with Eno Romari and those End of Times lunatics. Sevil was a lonely man, a bit lost, but he was hardly stupid. It was that cult that caused his death!" She was gripping the broom so hard it was trembling, and she stopped herself as someone passed between them to enter into the shop.

"We can sit down," Fen offered, and Meralyn gave a curt nod, leaned her broom against the wall of the shop, and followed them a short distance away to where several curved benches encircled a tree. The leaves overhead were whipping back and forth in the wind, and several fluttered down around them.

"The End of Times are a suicide cult, plain and simple," Meralyn explained. "Their beliefs are destructive, heretical, and frightening to me. I don't know how my brother ever got involved with them." She glanced around darkly. "I'm beginning to see them all over the city, but you'll most often find them in Godsreach, outside the Winged Guar.

"They preach that the Tribunal have lost their powers, and that this is a signal that the apocalypse is near. Eno Romari teaches his followers that our time in Tamriel is at an end, and the gates of Oblivion will soon open and the daedra will walk the land." She shook her head disbelievingly. "Only the ancestors who have already left this world will remain once the Daedric scourge covers the earth. And so he promotes what he calls 'The Cleansing.'"

"And what's that?" Fen asked, frowning at this strange premonition. Daedra walking the earth of Nirn at will sounded unlikely, but she had seen too much to believe that it was impossible.

"It is a ritual suicide," Meralyn told her, her voice quavering with anger. "My brother was no fool, but he was a trusting person, always looking for someone or something to believe in. He thought he had found that in the End of Times."

"Do you know where we can find Eno Romari?"

"Outside the Winged Guar, spouting his nonsense to passersby, and to the drunks stumbling out of the tavern," Meralyn replied immediately. "He's a lunatic, though. Stay away from him."

"Thank you," Fen told her, briefly touching Meralyn's hand. "And I'm very sorry." The door of the clothier's shop opened suddenly and a finely-dressed Bosmer woman with her blonde hair drawn tightly away from her face stood there, glancing around. She spotted Meralyn and her face soured.

"What do you think you're doing?" she shouted across the plaza, and Meralyn leapt to her feet, cast Fen and Julan a fleeting glance, then hurried back over to the doorstep to resume her sweeping.

Eno Romari was not hard to find. He was a peculiar Dunmer man, with a shaved head and gold earrings winking in the light, his eyes portruding and large. He wore a white linen robe tied with a sash of gold, and stood outside the door of the Winged Guar, trying to catch people by the arm as they exited. Most shook him off, but this did not appear to discourage him, especially when Fen and Julan approached. He turned his bulging eyes on them, a broad, almost fatherly grin spreading across his face.

"My greetings and blessings upon you, friends," he told them, giving them both a short bow. "I am Eno Romari. How may I help you in your journey through this life?"

"We'd like to talk to you, if it's not too much trouble," Fen said, leading him away from the door and over to an unoccupied spot on the porch. "About the End of Times." Thunder echoed ominously through the steel-grey sky overhead, and Romari nodded knowingly.

"We are a peaceful group, dedicated to relieving the suffering all are feeling in these troubled times," he told her, placing his hands together, palm to palm. "I teach my followers the way to enlightenment, through understanding of what is happening in our world and what is to come in the next. All of my people know the importance of preparedness for the coming troubles, and many are willing to make great sacrifice for our cause."

"What sort of sacrifice?" Fen asked, though she knew the answer.

"Our beliefs are very simple, dear friend. The blessed Tribunal –" (Julan made impatient noise, which Romari ignored) "– though once filled with glory, are no longer the gods they once were. As with the tides and Tamriel's moons, all cosmic powers will wax and wane. But, when gods die, it creates ripples throughout the lands. The passing of the Three will be a prelude to the end of this era, and the beginning of the next. The followers of the End of Times are making ourselves ready for this to happen."

"What exactly do you mean, 'making yourselves ready'?" asked Fen slowly. The streets were almost silent now, the thunder echoing more frequently across the sky.

"The Daedra Princes are not our ancestors," Romari explained, oblivious to the brewing storm around them. "Nor are they our allies. They will wash over the land, destroying all that man and mer have built over these thousands of years. The only protection from this scourge will be our true ancestors that have gone before us and watch over us even now. Many of our followers choose to participate in the Cleansing, to prepare the way for the rest of us. It is a sacrifice to be sure, but it is for the greater good."

"And the Cleansing?"

"It is a glorious ritual, friend. Our followers cleanse themselves of all of their troubles, all of their burdens here on this earth. They send themselves ahead to the ancestors, spreading our word, making ready for when we shall all join them in our fight against the Daedric hordes." With this pronouncement, lightning suddenly split the sky, accompanied by a crash of thunder and the pattering of rain. Romari's face was lit up eerily by the lightning, and he watched with a strange smile on his face as Fen and Julan took their leave. Before they crossed through the arch into the Temple courtyard, Fen glanced back through the sheeting rain and saw the Dunmer standing silently on the porch of the Winged Guar, watching them through the storm.


	16. Chapter 16

Almalexia was nothing short of livid when Fen relayed Romari's explanation to her. The goddess's brow furrowed and her muscles tensed, and the moment Fen had finished Almalexia closed her long-lashed eyes as if she were about to scream.

"They would dare..." she hissed in a deadly whisper. Her penetrating eyes snapped open again. "So, the Tribunal has lost its power, has it? These fools would dare question Almalexia's power, here in her city! I will give them a lesson in power, Fen, and you will be my agent."

"Which entails what, exactly?" Fen asked darkly.

"These fools must be reminded of the true power of a god. Since the attack on the city, much of my own power has been spent caring for my people. The number of wounded has been astronomical, and caring for them all has been taxing to even me. Still, I must demonstrate to these people what it is to mock the will of a god. You will travel to the ruins of Bamz-Amschend and activate the Karstangz-Bcharn."

"The Karstangz…?"

"The Karstangz-Bcharn. The Weather Witch." Almalexia's eyes were bright now, practically alive with cold glee. "At its height, the Dwemer civilization was masterful in the use of machinery. In a time of drought, Dwemer scholars were commissioned to create a machine that would bring rain to their lands. They created the Karstangz-Bcharn. Its existence was little more than a myth until recently, when the ruins opened beneath my city. I wish for you to activate the machine, make it to create ashstorms in Mournhold. Then, these heretics will know the power of Almalexia!" Fen stared at the goddess, not liking the sound of this plan.

"Ashstorms," she repeated. "In Mournhold." Almalexia smiled serenely.

"That's correct. While these storms may be common on the island of Vvardenfell, they do not occur here, so far removed from the Red Mountain. Now, though, they will, and these heretics will understand the power of the Tribunal. The power of Almalexia!" she gestured fluidly to one of her Hands, the Ordinators around the room, and he came forward, keeping his eyes down and presenting Fen with a dented Dwemer coherer. "Take this, and use it to activate the machine," Almalexia told Fen as the Hand backed into the shadows again, his eyes averted. "You will have to divine its workings on your own, dear Fen, but I believe you are up to the task." With that, she signaled for Fen to leave.

"What's that for?" Julan asked as Fen came out into the Reception Hall.

"I'll tell you when we get back to the inn," she muttered, noticing that Fedris Hler was watching them closely. Julan nodded, and they went back out into the torrential downpour, pulling their hoods up and moving as quickly as possible through the sheeting rain towards Godsreach. It was coming down almost sideways, and the trees were stirring mightily, the wind whipping their branches fiercely. Fen glanced up in amazement. In all her years of living in Mournhold, she had never seen a storm this momentous in the city.

They finally reached the Winged Guar, where they trooped into their rooms to peel off their wet things and towel themselves dry. Fen was sitting at the vanity in her dressing gown, trying unsuccessfully to dry the moisture from her hair, when Julan knocked and came in, his own hair a tangled mess around his face, a towel around his neck.

"So?" he said, dropping down in the armchair beside her fireplace, rubbing his hair vigorously with the towel. "What does she want you to do now?"

"She wants me to manipulate an ancient Dwemer machine to create an ashstorm in Mournhold," Fen said darkly, pulling the towel off her head and reaching for her comb. In Fen's mirror, Julan's reflection had frozen, his eyes wide.

"You're not serious," he finally said, dropping his towel on the floor. Fen nodded grimly, sweeping her hair to one side to comb through it. "Fen…she's crazy."

"But think about it," Fen replied, studying her somber face in the mirror, narrowed by the long white scar where Bolvyn Venim's gauntlet had once struck her. "This will send a message to Sotha Sil too, won't it? I'm no fan of Almalexia's, but if Sotha Sil wants to try and destroy my city I will do everything in my power to stop him."

"So you're going to frighten the people into worshipping Almalexia instead?" Julan demanded furiously. Fen turned around on her stool to face him.

"I'm not doing this to frighten anyone," she told him firmly. "I'm doing it to put _Sotha Sil_ in his place. If he thinks that he can set those creatures on my city and my people, he's mistaken." Julan gave her a long look, like he was desperate to say something, but kept his mouth closed as Fen turned back to the mirror and resumed combing her hair. "Let's leave tomorrow morning, okay?" she said. "Before sunrise. Since tunneling through ruins always seems to take us most of the day."

The next morning, they donned their cloaks and left the inn. The streets were barren and empty, and there were puddles every few feet and broken branches scattered on the cobbles. The only people out were the Ordinators and Royal Guards, looking broken-down and tired as they stood at their posts.

The fountain at the centre of the Plaza Brindisi Dorum had been roped off until the statue could be repaired. There was no one around, however, so Fen and Julan slipped beneath the barrier and climbed up the large plinth once more, where the great hole between the remains of the statue gaped open at them. They once more made their way down the tunnel to the great gallery, and although the strange creatures were dead, there were three Dwemer sphere centurions rolling alertly back and forth on the floor far below.

"Wait," Fen whispered, pulling Julan behind a rock as he drew his bow. "Those aren't normal centurions." She stared hard at the constructs, trying to discern what was different about them – then she realized it. While the sphere centurions in the Vvardenfell ruins where menacing-looking but easy to take down, these seemed to be split in half at their base and had a kind of crossbow built onto one arm, loaded with thick bolts. "I have a feeling those will be a lot harder to kill than the ones we're used to," Fen muttered. "So let's be careful." Julan nodded, and they waited until two of the centurions were out of sight before going out onto the rocky outcropping to attack – Julan with arrows, Fen with magic.

Almost at once, the centurion fired a bolt at them. It cut through the air much faster than expected, and Fen could sense a powerful – and probably lethal – enchantment on it. She dove to the side, pulling Julan with her, and they tumbled down among the rubble and hit the ground, hard. Fen quickly got to her feet and Julan followed suit, both of them stepping over the broken stone and metal that littered the floor to continue firing at the centurion. It fired another bolt, and Fen quickly ducked to avoid it – she felt it graze the air over her head and impale itself into the stone wall behind her.

Julan moved forward quickly, seeming to decide that it would be difficult to get a good shot with the bolts constantly being fired at him. For a brief moment he parried with the centurion, then it fell, emitting sparks from its back and slumping over, its crossbow dragging on the ground.

This, unfortunately, had attracted the attention of the other two centurions, and they rolled forward, their crossbows poised. Fen let off a blast of God's Fire, and the centurions stumbled a bit, but continued forward. The first raised its crossbow.

Fen summoned a frost atronach, commanded it with a point, and quickly moved to the side as it lumbered forward, shooting blasts of magicka at the constructs. In a few seconds, the one centurion slumped over and the other collapsed to the corrugated metal ground with a series of heavy-sounding clangs. Fen banished the atronach and moved forward, kneeling beside one of the centurions.

"Wow," she murmured, examining its crossbow. "I've never seen anything this powerful in a ruin before."

"I'd say so," Julan agreed, picking up one of the fallen bolts from the floor. "If one of these had hit us we'd be dead in seconds."

Fen stood up and glanced around the room. It felt even larger from the floor – the ceiling was in shadow, the vast walls painted with strange, dark silhouettes, cracked remains of fluted pillars scattered beside the few that were still standing.

"Do you have any idea where we're supposed to go?" Julan asked, and his voice echoed around the tall, dark chamber. Fen reached into her bag and pulled out the Ring of Azura, which bettered her vision in the darkness.

"Usually the most important part of a Dwemer ruin is at the bottom," she said, heading for the side of the hall where a rusted steel door stood. "So let's start by going down."

Bamz-Amschend was unlike any ruin Fen had ever seen. It was the same basic building pattern – corrugated steel and brass on everything – but the architecture was completely different. The hallways were two stories high, each individual room they entered even taller. And the ruin was in a worse state of decay than Fen had ever seen. Large panels were regularly missing from the floor. Rust climbed the walls like ivy. Every few seconds there was a great rattling or humming that echoed through the walls around them. Bits of rubble crowded the edges of the halls. Every hour or so, they would come across a caved-in passage completely blocked by rocks. There were more sphere centurions, too, rolling along silently until Fen and Julan came upon them. There were also steam centurions that were at least three times bigger than the ones on Vvardenfell and were, unfortunately, resistant to magic, resulting in Fen and Julan using a lot more of her healing potions than she would have liked.

At some point, they entered what appeared to be an empty dining hall. Rusted bowls, plates, and cutlery were set out along the tables, the food that had once occupied them long gone. Each of the benches held several piles of grey ash, and some of them were accompanied by Dwemer armour and weaponry. There were two enormous fans overhead, one broken, the other turning in halfhearted circles. The entire hall felt eerily devoid of life, and Fen felt gooseflesh rising on her arms.

"This place is strange," Julan muttered as Fen went to look at one of the tables. She touched one of the ash piles and chills raced up her spine.

"I think these were the Dwemer," she said softly. Julan appeared by her side.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at this," she said, gesturing to the ash piles. "Look where they are. And some of them have armour by them. I'd bet you anything that when the Dwemer disappeared, this is what happened to them."

"Then why aren't the Vvardenfell ruins like this?"

"We're the first mer that have been in this place for centuries," Fen murmured, her voice echoing eerily. "And I think this ruin is much older than the Vvardenfell ones. In Vvardenfell, all the ash was swept away and all the armour was looted. But we're the first living things that have been in here in ages."

"I have this weird feeling," Julan said after a moment. "I can't describe it. But I just feel…odd." Fen didn't have to say that she felt the same way. They both knew it to be true. They left the dining hall behind, chased down the hallway by the steady beating of the one working fan.

Much of the rooms were the same, and it was hours before they found anything of interest – in one of the storage rooms there was a heavy iron chest packed with two large satchels that felt strangely light.

"What do you reckon these are for?" Julan asked, weighing one of the satchels in his hands. Fen picked up the other one and brought it to her nose – it smelled of tar and gas.

"I think they're explosives," she said. "Let's take them with us. Maybe we can use them to get through some of those rockfalls."

Sure enough, they soon reached another caved-in passage, and Julan lodged one of the satchels in between the rocks.

"What do we do now?" he asked. Fen reached forward and touched the satchel, casting a weak fire spell.

"Now we run," she said hastily, grabbing his arm, and they sprinted to the end of the corridor. There was a huge crash that rocked the floor and knocked them to their feet. Dust and rocks showered down from the cavernous ceiling, then all was still. Fen looked up, squinted through the floating dust, and saw a small hole had been made in the rocks. "Perfect," she said. "We're lucky it didn't cave in on us." She and Julan climbed through to the other side of the hallway, emerging coated with dust and debris.

They soon found their way to a tall room that was very different from the others they had seen. Screwed into one wall was a colossal dog-like construct that appeared to be half-finished, as evidenced by the detached hand and strange tools littered around it. Other cogs and bits of machinery stood around the room on rusted tables and desks, as well as several jars of an odd, congealed substance that smelled strongly of burned tar.

"This reminds me of that room in Endusal," Julan said, examining a foot on one of the desks. "There were a bunch of giant body parts there too."

"This is some kind of forge," Fen muttered, glancing around the room. "This must have been a craftsman's workshop." She was tempted to take one of the strange jars of spoiled tar to look at later, but the thought of disturbing too much in this ruin was unsettling, and they left the forge they way they had found it.

They continued down the long, endless hallways, moving deeper and deeper underground. A few hours after they left the forge, they came to a flooded passage that was blocked by another rockfall. Fen lit the second satchel and they quickly moved out of the way as it exploded. When the dust had settled, they could hear running water coming from beyond the rockfall.

"That's odd," Fen muttered, and she led the way through the hole in the rocks. When she straightened up, the sight that met her eyes took her breath away.

They were in an enormous, dome-ceilinged room, everything illuminated up with a deep, bluish light. Waterfalls poured from slots in the walls to a deep pool far below, and narrow iron walkways stretched out from the thin border in the room, pointing toward the great mechanism at its centre. The thing itself was a metal sort of egg, surrounded by thin spires that grazed the ceiling. The guardians of the room – two sphere centurion archers – had long rusted and decayed in the presence of so much moisture, and now hung motionless around the edges of the room.

Fen and Julan slowly crossed the thin walkway toward the Karstangz-Bcharn – the Weather Witch. They went around to the back of the cap of gilded iron, and there was a circular slot there. On a short platform across from the slot, three levers stood. On the far wall across from the levers, there was a large, blank stone panel.

Fen pulled the Dwemer coherer out of her bag and carried it over to the slot. The coherer fit in perfectly, and with a loud grating noise, the metal egg rose up several feet, then began to rotate counterclockwise, its pointed tip glowing faintly.

"What do we do now?" Julan asked loudly over the hissing of the machine. Fen turned to the levers.

"Pull that one on the far right," she shouted, going to the left one. She grabbed hold of the rusted lever and, using all her might, dragged it toward her with a sharp grating noise at the same time Julan moved the right one. The panel shifted with a great crumbling noise, and now there was a chipped painting of some sort of cloud. Fen tasted something strange and glanced around. The tip of the metal egg was beginning to spawn fog that drifted into the room, slowly expanding as it did so. The noise made it impossible to think.

"Pull the middle one!" Fen shouted, and Julan did so as Fen pushed the left one back. The fog ceased almost at once – the panel shifted again, this time showing a sheeting rainstorm. Water poured out of the tip of the Weather Witch, dribbling over its contours like a fountain. "Push that one back again!" Julan slowly cranked the middle lever and the panel grated to a new image – a volcano, spewing ash. "That's it!" Fen shouted. She turned – the Karstangz-Bcharn was now emitting reddish ash from its point, a loud that was quickly expanding through the enormous chamber. "Let's get out of here," she called to Julan, and they quickly crossed the room and climbed through the hole before the gallery could fill with ash.

"Gods," Julan said. "That was insane."

"I never knew they were so advanced," Fen murmured, watching the chamber fill with hissing ash through the hole. "I mean, I knew they were smart, but I never imagined they would be able to change the _weather_. I'd love to have a chance to study it."

"We've got other things to worry about," Julan said, kicking a few rocks out of the way. "Like the fact that Almalexia is guarshit insane."

Slowly, Fen and Julan climbed the great distance back up out of the ruins and up into the cave just underneath the city. Fen climbed up the ladder first, hearing a faint whistling overhead. She emerged aboveground and her hair pulled itself loose of the braid she had put in that morning in the fierce wind that whipped the air. The sky was a cruel, rust-coloured red, the air thick with swirling ash. Fen felt Julan tap her foot, and she moved out of the way, extending a hand to help him out but staring upward all the while. People were running with their heads down, some of them in a complete panic. The trees were flung this way and that, some of them nearly doubled over in the fierce storm. It was the ashstorm, more powerful than Fen had ever seen on Vvardenfell, slowly beating away at everything in its path. Mournhold – Fen's beautiful, beloved city – now stood in the thick of the cartwheeling ash, and it was all because of her.


	17. Chapter 17

"I am well-pleased, good and faithful servant," Almalexia said, lightly pressing the flats of her hands together and smiling serenely at Fen from beneath her long, dark lashes. "My people look upon the elements, and see there written a divine testament to my lordship. Did ever any other god display such dominion over the earth and sky? But now...with a heavy heart, I must lay a sad burden upon you. I bid you bring the peace of understanding to my Missing Hand.

"One of my most faithful guards, one of my very own Hands of Almalexia, pledged to honor and protect and serve me in all ways, has lost his mind," she continued, her face mournful. She gestured vaguely to the circle of silent Ordinators around her, and Fen noticed there was an empty space in the guards directly to Almalexia's right. "Salas Valor has abandoned me, and now spews vile and slanderous untruths about me to any who would listen. I pity him, and know he is not responsible for his actions. To view the splendour of a god may drive even the strongest mortal mad. But now he presents a threat to us, and he is very dangerous. I fear you may not be able to spare his life." Fen's hands tightened into fists. Almalexia wanted her to kill someone for telling the truth. Fen was beginning to see that the politics of Mournhold relied heavily on this tactic.

"Now Salas Valor haunts the streets and sewers of Mournhold," the goddess continued. "His wild, distracted manner frightens the people, but even my Ordinators are afraid to confront so terrible a weaponmaster and war-wizard. I beg you – seek out Salas Valor. Relieve us of this threat to my beloved people, and bring peace to my sacred city of Mournhold." When Fen didn't respond, Almalexia plunged into speech again.

"Salas Valor was once my most trusted Hand and faithful servant," she said, laying a long-fingered hand over her heart. "But recently his behavior has been erratic. He has been quiet and unresponsive. I am afraid... I may have allowed him to come too close. It is impossible that a mortal and a god might meet on equal ground, but...perhaps he had deluded himself. I regret his lamentable state, and am sorry that I may have been partly responsible for his condition." With that, Almalexia waved her hand gracefully, and Fen retreated down the platform, leaving the eerie silence of Almalexia's High Chapel in her wake.

The Temple Reception chamber was a completely different state. There were all manner of people there, coughing and blinking and shaking ash out of their clothes and hair. Women clutched their children close and men glanced nervously out the high, stained-glass windows at regular intervals. Priests and priestesses moved throughout the small crowd that had assembled, trying in vain to calm them down. Julan was waiting just beside the door, looking thoroughly irritated.

"Look at this," he muttered to Fen, gesturing to a woman who was in hysterics, grasping Fedris Hler's hand and begging him to stop the ashstorms. "Look what she's doing to these people."

"Let's get out of here," Fen replied in an undertone, and they slipped through the distressed people and made their way outside.

Just an hour of the storm raging through the city had already caused more destruction than Fen had thought possible. She had never noticed on Vvardenfell, because the ashstorms only occurred where the land was barren and empty, but it seemed to be obliterating every living thing in its path. The gardens that spread all around the Temple and were normally bursting with many-coloured blooms were now patches of tangled weed coated in brown ash. The ornately groomed trees that stood along the paths had begun to wither and die, their leaves ripped brutally from their branches by the howling wind. And everywhere, people were running with their heads down, covering their faces with their hands or scraps of cloth, struggling against the wind to seek shelter from the brutal weather. Fen wrapped Gildan's headscarf firmly around her own face, feeling increasingly guilty. It didn't matter that Almalexia had given the order. It was Fen who had caused the ashstorms.

The Winged Guar was busier than usual, though its patrons were less distressed than those who had taken refuge at the Temple. It was late in the day, and Fen, though exhausted from their run through Bamz-Amschend, wanted to be finished with this business quickly.

"You go upstairs," she said to Julan. "I'll go down. Find out if anyone has seen a man in High Ordinator armour wandering around in the streets."

She did not have to ask many people, though, for the barkeep told her straightaway that he had seen the man lurking near the canal just a few moments ago when he went to empty the water pail.

"I don't plan on killing him," Fen told Julan as they went outside. "Just warn him, like with the _Common Tongue _authors. Tell him to get out of Mournhold." Julan nodded, agreeing with this plan, and they made their way through the howling wind, slipping in between the houses and buildings until they got to the blank stretch of road in front of the canal. A man in full High Ordinator armour stood with his back to them, staring into the canal. His armour had an odd sheen to it, Fen noticed.

"Salas Valor?" she shouted over the wind. The man twitched, then turned sharply. Fen could not see his face through the impassive mask, though his eyes glinted through the mesh that covered their openings.

"So," he shouted immediately, making Fen jump slightly. "She has sent you for me. Now YOU are Her favorite. How convenient!"

"Salas –" Fen started, but he spoke swiftly over her.

"Whichever of us dies, she will be well pleased. And if both of us die, so much the better!" He turned fully to face them now, the wind stirring the fringe on his helmet. "Well, I am content. Perhaps this is how it was meant to end. I ask the forgiveness of all the gods and spirits – whoever they may be. And you, too, might make your peace with your gods, because at least one of us will not live to see another sunset."

Before Fen could react, Valor had drawn his scimitar, glinting cruelly in the ash, and had leapt forward, aiming a swift cut at Fen's head. She flung her hand up and a shield formed there, giving her a chance to move back as the scimitar crushed it. He sprang forward once more, completely unfazed, moving with deadly speed and skill. Fen cast a mild blind spell, making Valor stumble momentarily and giving her and Julan a chance to act.

Fen immediately let loose a barrage of God's Fire, completely engulfing Valor with flames. When they cleared though, he moved towards them as swiftly as ever, as if completely unaffected. Julan quickly leapt forward to parry, though Fen felt uneasy. Valor moved with lightning-fast precision, and while Julan had become a skilled warrior since they had met, she wasn't sure he could battle a Hand of Almalexia without help.

Fen set to work, summoning every creature she could think of to help, then going in with her own enchanted staff. Even completely surrounded by adversaries, Valor never seemed to tire, moving fiercely and quickly, cutting down the daedra Fen had summoned with ease. When they were all down, he turned to Julan, poised for a death blow.

Fen swung her staff with all her might, cracking it across Valor's helmet. It hit the plume atop his head and fell sideways, hitting the ground and rolling away as Valor turned to Fen. He looked perfectly normal – not the least bit mad – and Fen faltered slightly as he turned his attention away from Julan.

She faltered a moment too long – the Hand sliced his scimitar smoothly across her, and Fen felt a searing pain across her chest and she stumbled backwards, gasping, and hit the ground, knocking the wind out of her. The ash-filled sky overhead was spinning – she could vaguely hear the sounds of Valor and Julan sparring, but they were strangely muted. Fen touched a hand to her front and her fingers came away covered in blood.

There was the sound of another body hitting the ground, and Fen squeezed her eyes shut, breathing hard. _Please don't let it be Julan,_ she thought desperately. _Please._

"Fen! Gods, Fen, are you okay?" Fen let out a relieved laugh. The movement tore at her wound and she gasped in sudden pain. "Oh, _shit_," Julan muttered, reaching for Fen's bag. "Shit, shit, shit." He rummaged hurriedly through it, still muttering, and finally found a small bottle. "I hope this is the right one," Fen heard him mutter, and then there was a cool, soothing liquid in her throat, familiar. A potion. Fen coughed and sat up quickly, looking down. Her robes were torn and she was still covered in blood, but the wound had healed.

"Are you all right?" she asked Julan at once, and he nodded. Fen saw the body of Salas Valor sprawled on the ground behind him. "Gods, he was worse than Karrod."

They got to their feet and stared down at Valor, his eyes open and glassy, Fen's hair whipping through the ashen wind around them.

"What do you reckon?" Julan shouted after a moment. "Should we leave him here?"

"No," Fen replied, reaching down and pressing her hand to the Hand's chest. His body slowly disintegrated, leaving a pile of white ash that was quickly swept away by the wind. "I have a feeling he didn't do anything wrong."


	18. Chapter 18

Silence pressed against Fen's ears as she climbed the stairs to Almalexia's platform. The goddess watched her serenely, a faint, knowing smile on her face, her hands held out with her palms pointed skyward. "It is time we talked of greater things," she said when Fen had told her of Valor's death. _Without even a thought for him,_ Fen thought angrily. Almalexia went on, "I have watched you since your arrival in Vvardenfell, dear Fen, and you have been a strong and faithful servant to me. None but the Nerevarine could have succeeded as you have." Her eyes fluttered open and Fen gazed steadily back at her. "How long I have waited for this!" she cried suddenly, a gentle smile breaking across her face. "My Nerevar, returned to me at last! I have watched from my Temple as others have made the claim, and I have seen them fall. I believe now that you are the one who was prophesied!"

"I am not Nerevar," Fen said at once. "Nerevar is –"

"I believe you now to be the Nerevarine," Almalexia interrupted smoothly. "Though I have watched others come and go, my belief is that you are the child of prophecy. The time has come for you to reclaim your station. Together we can unite Morrowind once again, free from the Imperial yoke."

"I have fulfilled the prophecy," Fen tried again. "Dagoth Ur is gone, and that is –"

"For years, the Chimer and the Dwemer had been at war," Almalexia continued, ignoring Fen's protests. "The Dwemer spurned the Daedra that the Chimer worshipped, instead placing their faith in their metal creations. It was only when the Nords invaded Resdayn that the two nations were able to join as one, under the leadership of our Nerevar and the Dwarf-King Dumac. In time, the two generals became blood friends, and on the day that Nerevar and I were wed, Dumac presented us with twin blades, Hopesfire and Trueflame." This time, Fen said nothing. She had never heard of these blades, and she watched as Almalexia raised one elegant hand and a Dwemer scimitar materialized there, its blade glowing with a fierce, burning blue fire.

"Each was a magnificent blade, the pinnacle of Dwemer craftsmanship," Almalexia explained, closing her hand around the hilt and studying the blade fondly. "Their blades burned with an unearthly fire, and the sight of them struck fear into our enemies. My blade has been kept safe, but not so Trueflame, the Blade of Nerevar. It was lost at the battle of Red Mountain."

"Trueflame," Fen repeated, and the name sounded familiar on her tongue.

"Yes," Almalexia replied sadly, waving her hand once. Her own blade disappeared, and the room was left significantly darker without its strange blue fire. "The Blade of Nerevar. In the battle beneath Red Mountain, Trueflame was shattered, the flame extinguished, and in the confusion, the pieces lost. It is time for you, Nerevarine, to remake the blade and take your place by my side once again. I have only one, which I now give to you." She held her hands out, palms outstretched, and a sword hilt appeared there, floating above her hands. It was ornately crafted, with a narrow steel handguard that was rusted and dented portruding from its base. "Through my magic, I have been able to determine that the other pieces of the blade are in my city. Find the other two pieces of the blade, and forge the blade anew. Only you may accomplish this, Nerevarine."

Fen took the hilt from where it floated above Almalexia's hands, and she felt strangely somber. The piece had a dead, empty feeling to it, and something in Fen's distant memory – the memory she knew belonged to Nerevar – told her that this was the exact opposite of how it should be. Trueflame was meant to be blazing, full of life and power. Not worthless and shattered into pieces.

"The best weaponsmiths in all of Tamriel reside in my city," Almalexia was saying. "When you have recovered the pieces of the blade, seek out the finest among these craftsmen, and press him into our service." With that, Fen was dismissed, and she and Julan returned to Godsreach, where she relayed all Almalexia had told her to him and showed him the broken sword hilt.

"So this belonged to Nerevar, did it?" Julan said, dropping unceremoniously on Fen's bed and weighing the piece in his hands. "Or to you, I guess."

"Yes," Fen replied, pulling off her headscarf. A shower of ash accompanied it, and Fen shook her hair loose, letting more of it sprinkle out onto the tiled floor. "And she gave me absolutely no clue as to how to find the rest of the pieces."

"Well," Julan said, setting the hilt carefully on the bedside table. "It's Dwemer, isn't it? Maybe it's in Bamz-Amschend."

"Yes," Fen said slowly, pulling off her cloak and draping it over a chair. She stared at her reflection in the mirror thoughtfully. "Maybe…" She thought carefully. It would match Almalexia's. A scimitar. There was something tugging at her memory, but she couldn't quite understand it. "Let's not worry about this until tomorrow, though," Fen said. "I'm exhausted." She pulled her hair out of its braid and sat down at the vanity. "Maybe Plitinius knows something," she mused, leaning on her hands and staring into the mirror. "He always seems to know what's going on in this city."

Plitinius, it turned out, was not difficult to find. They found him in the first place they looked the next morning – at the outdoor theatre in the Great Bazaar, where it looked like the actors were struggling to pack their props and scenery into boxes despite the storm. Plitinius was speaking brightly to the flamboyant Dunmer director of the acting troupe on the stage.

"Ah! It's our Tarvus look-alike!" the director said at once as Fen and Julan approached. "How's the acting career coming for you, son?"

"Um…it's all right," Julan said awkwardly.

"We were just wondering if we could speak to Plitinius for a moment," Fen interjected before the director could push Julan into another job.

"Certainly!" Plitinius said at once. "Meryn, I'll only be a moment," he said, giving the director a wink, and he followed them to a sheltered alcove in the wall where the storm was less audible. "Nightmare, this weather," Plitinius said with a chuckle. "Meryn was just telling me that the Mournhold Players are looking for an indoor performance space. I suppose it'll be easier, what with this storm."

"Plitinius," Fen said quickly. "We need your help."

"Certainly, Fenara! Looking for something in the sewers again?"

"Not this time, no." Fen pulled Trueflame's hilt from her bag and held it out to him. "This is a piece of Nerevar's blade. The other two pieces are somewhere in the city and we need to find them." Plitinius took the hilt from her hand, looking astonished.

"Nerevar's….good god, Fenara, this is incredible. This must be thousands of years old!" Fen nodded.

"Do you have any idea where we could find the other pieces?"

"I wish I knew where to tell you to look, but my knowledge of ancient artifacts is somewhat limited," Plitinius said regretfully. "Perhaps you'd do better speaking with Torasa Aram, the curator at the Museum. Her knowledge is extensive when it comes to unique items."

They thanked Plitinius and hurried on their way, Fen leading through the storm back to Godsreach, where the Mournhold Museum of Artifacts stood on a street corner. She had never been inside the museum, though she knew where it was from her rare, sheltered outings as an adolescent. They quickly located the building and slipped inside, shaking ash from their clothes.

The main room was quiet, with a single Ordinator standing guard near the back. It was dotted with wooden pedestals, each topped with a wine-coloured cushion. Several of the pedestals were empty, though most of them held various rings, weapons, and other aged-looking artifacts. The museum had a strong musty smell about it.

"This place looks cheerful," Julan muttered, but Fen ignored him and went to go examine the nearest pedestal, where a white-gold ring inlaid with a rectangular ruby sat. Its name card read _Ring of Phynaster. _

"Welcome to the Mournhold Museum of Artifacts." Fen looked up. A gloomy-looking Dunmer woman had appeared before a door, wearing splendidly embroidered silks but looking particularly drawn. "We haven't had many visitors since this storm started. Would you like a tour?"

"No, actually," Fen told her. "We were hoping you could help us with something." Fen carefully drew out the sword hilt. "This a piece of the Blade of Nerevar. Trueflame. We're looking for the other two. They're in the city somewhere."

"The pieces of the Blade of Nerevar here in Mournhold?" the curator said, her tired eyes widening. "May I…?" she asked, and Fen handed the hilt to her. She stared reverently, turning the piece over in her hands. "Now _there's_ something I'd like to get my hands on for the Museum. I can't say that I have seen any that I know of," she said, still studying the hilt, "but I do have one piece from roughly the same time, and it seems to be of Dwemer construction.

"I don't even have it on display, because I haven't been able to positively identify it yet. It's a shield of Dwemer make, but not traditional in any sense of the word. The pieces of it just don't seem to match, and I've wondered if it isn't some sort of a fake. I suppose I might be able to part with it, but I'll need some compensation."

"How much?" Fen asked, reaching for her gold.

"Not money," she replied. "No, we're funded by the Archaeologists Guild in Firewatch. I don't need money. But I'm always looking for new pieces for the Museum of Artifacts. Unique items, armor and weapons of lore – you know the stuff. If you would be willing to donate a couple to the Museum, I'd be willing to part with the shield."

"What sort of items?" Fen asked glumly, replacing her sack.

"Here," the curator said, taking a book off a nearby shelf and handing it to her. "Anything in that we would take. If you need anything, please let me know." The curator turned and started up the stairs at the back of the museum while Fen opened the thick book, leafing through pages upon pages of artifacts.

"Gods," Julan muttered, peering over her shoulder. "I didn't know that much stuff _existed._" Fen flipped to the back of the book, where there was an index. She ran her finger along the names of artifacts, searching for ones she knew. With a sinking feeling, she reached the end and realized she had two of the artifacts mentioned – the Warlock's Ring and the Staff of Magnus – but she was rather attached to them both.

"I'm not in the mood to go cave diving on Vvardenfell," she said after a moment, closing the book. "It'll have to do. Can you go get the curator?" While Julan went upstairs to find her, Fen pawed through her bag until she located the Warlock's Ring and pulled the Staff of Magnus off her back. She looked at them both rather reminiscently – she had thrown the Staff of Magnus to kill the colossal Hunger guarding Han-Sashael's bones. It seemed like years ago.

"Found something?" the curator asked, coming back down with Julan, and she gasped when she saw the staff and ring that Fen held out to her. "The Staff of Magnus!" she exclaimed at once, taking it reverently. "And the Warlock's Ring! This…This is a great honour for the museum, sera. I will go and fetch the Dwemer piece at once." The curator slipped back into her office, then emerged a moment later, carrying a severely scratched, rusted, and dented Dwemer shield with an odd, out-of-place looking steel spike on its front. Fen and Julan thanked the curator and left the gloomy, musty-smelling museum to return to the Winged Guar for lunch.

Fen stored the shield safely in her room and sat down on her bed, staring up at the canopy. _Something _had been egging at her memory since Almalexia had given her the first piece of the blade. What was it? Fen closed her eyes, thinking carefully. She ran back through the events that had occurred since she arrived in Mournhold. Finding the Dark Brotherhood, Delitian's petty tasks, searching the sewers for Fedris Hler, the attack on the Plaza, the duel with Karrod…

Fen sat bolt upright. The duel with Karrod. She remembered it so distinctly, almost every motion of the fight. And she remembered seeing Karrod's blade.

Karrod's ancient-looking scimitar.

"Julan," Fen said, quickly going out to the bar with the shield under her arm. "I think I know where the last piece is."

"You do?" Julan said, immediately turning away from the group of young Dunmer girls he had been talking to. Fen nodded eagerly and Julan swung off the bar stool and swept on his cloak, paying no mind to the affronted-looking girls. "Let's go."

When they reached the Palace, Fen covered her face once more and caught a young page by the arm in one of the reception chambers.

"Do you know where the king is?" she asked.

"He's in his rooms. Bathing, I think."

"Perfect," Fen breathed. "What about his guard?"

"The Redguard one? In the guards' quarters, I'd expect."

"Can you fetch him for me?"

"I've got to deliver this to the Agricultural Head," the boy said irritably, waving a sealed envelope at her. "Go find him yourself." He pushed Fen away and left the chamber. Fen quickly drew the headscarf over her face, just as a precaution, and they made their way through the corridors of the underbelly of the Palace until they reached the guards quarters, where Karrod was, indeed, sitting at a table, his helmet at his elbow, reading a book.

"Karrod." The Redguard looked up and nodded in recognition.

"What can I do for you?" he asked as Fen set the heavy shield down on the table. Still unused to his low voice and slightly startled, she took out the sword hilt and explained the situation of Nerevar's blade to him, her eyes straying hopefully to the sheath at his hip. When she finished, Karrod drew the scimitar out, and Fen saw, to her delight, that it was a blade almost identical to Almalexia's.

"When I was a child, my father gave me this weapon," he said, examining the blade with a sad smile. "He told me that as long as I had it, none would defeat me in battle...until the rightful owner came to claim it from me. I know now that you are the one of whom he spoke." Karrod laid the blade flat and slid it across the table to Fen. "I give it to you freely. May it serve you as well as it has served me." Fen picked up the blade, and a sudden feeling surged in her, a feeling she couldn't quite describe. Like a mixture of relief and determination.

"Thank you," she said softly, taking the blade, and Karrod nodded, then wordlessly stood and left the room.

"So now what?" Julan asked, picking up the scimitar.

"Now we find a craftsman," Fen replied. "Come on, the craftsman's hall is just over in Godsreach." Heaving the Dwemer shield into her arms again, they fought their way through the storm to Godsreach, where they quickly ducked inside the craftsman's hall, which was bustling with activity. They were directed to the local weaponsmith, an Orc called Yagak gro-Gluk. His forge was at the back, and the tile floor was blackened with soot and grime. Yagak, too, was wearing an ash-black apron, his sleeves rolled up to reveal his muscular arms as he hammered a sword into shape. When they entered, he turned around, the fire causing sweat to bead across his face. His brow was so low that his eyes were nearly impossible to see. Fen wondered how he had enough vision to forge weapons at all.

"What do you want?" he shouted over the bustle of the craftsman's hall and the crackling of his own forge. "I'm here to make weapons, not to chat." Fen laid the shield on a nearby table, then took out Karrod's scimitar and the broken hilt. She explained the task of forging the blade to him, showing him the broken piece poorly attached to the shield. The Orc's eyes, though barely visible, were curious.

"You've got some interesting pieces there," he grunted, picking up the heavy shield with one hand and turning it around to see the back. "I can work with this. Make the best blade you've ever seen...not that I figure you'd know a daikatana from a butter knife. Come back in two days' time, and I'll have your blade. Now leave me alone."

Fen thanked him and turned to leave, but Julan lingered. She glanced at him.

"You go on," he said quickly. "I want to – have a look around."

"Look around a craftsman's hall?" Julan's ears reddened.

"I – I did some smith work when I was younger. It's interesting. I just want to have a look." Fen grinned.

"And I thought you had been trained to be a fearsome warrior all your life," she joked.

"Well…smithing was the alternative to that." Fen smiled.

"I'll be at the inn, then."

And she made her way back out into the storm.


	19. Chapter 19

Fen wasn't sure how to spend the next two days. There wasn't much to do in the city itself, seeing as nearly everyone had deserted the outdoors while the ashstorm raged. She ended up spending most of her time in her room at the Winged Guar, replacing potions she'd used up recently in between reading _The Real Barenziah._

"Why didn't she ever tell me any of this?" Fen wondered aloud on the evening of the second day. Julan was leaning back on a chair, his feet on her table, eating an apple as he read _A Dance in the Fire_. Fen lay flat on her bed, holding the book above her, flipping idly through the pages. "She had this amazing life, and I never knew about it." Fen sat up on her elbows, looking over at Julan. "Did you know she ran away with a stablehand to Whiterun when she was my age? And she was in the Thieves Guild?"

"I wouldn't've told you if you were my granddaughter," Julan said, turning the page of his book. "It's awkward to read that stuff about your family."

"But it's so fascinating," Fen murmured, flipping through the book again. They read in silence for a few more moments. "What were you doing at the craftsman's hall yesterday?" Fen asked. Julan's ears went red.

"I told you, I was just looking around."

"I'm not an idiot, Julan," Fen said, grinning at him. "What were you doing?"

"I…." Julan let the front feet of his chair hit the floor with a _thud_. "If you must know, I was getting some armour made."

"Armour? What kind?"

"Glass. I needed a new set." Fen realized Julan had been using the same steel armour that he had had since they first met all this time.

"Oh. Julan, you could have just asked me."

"It's fine," he said quickly. "I wanted a custom set anyway."

"Don't _you_ have to provide the glass for custom armour, though?"

"Remember when Shani got trapped in that abandoned glass mine?" Fen blinked.

"I didn't see you collecting glass while we were in there…"

"Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen!" Julan said hotly. Fen smiled.

"Julan, it's fine. You've been through enough nonsense with me, you deserve something new."

"Well…I used your money." Fen let out an exasperated laugh.

"The last thing I care about right now is money." Julan smiled also, and they were silent for a time.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Julan said finally. "We came here for the Dark Brotherhood, and now we're forging Nerevar's long-lost blade."

"It's more than that," Fen said, staring at the canopy over her bed. "I need to…I need to be accepted here. I can't protect Morrowind if I'm shut out of my birthplace." Julan raised an eyebrow at her over his book.

"And how will doing this make Helseth accept you, exactly?"

"I don't know," Fen said, rubbing her eyes. "I just have a feeling. Like, if I show Sotha Sil that Mournhold is my city and how far I'll go to protect it, my father will want me again." She paused. "He might even announce me as his daughter." It sounded foolish, she realized, saying the dream she had had since childhood out loud. Julan, however, looked unsurprised.

"It'd be about time too, all the shit he's had you running about doing lately."

"You think he'd do it?"

"Well, I don't know him. So I dunno. But he should." Fen smiled weakly.

"I appreciate it. If only you were my father."

"I think that'd make sharing a tent awkward." Fen laughed, and it felt like the first time she had done so in years. There was a knock at the door, and Fen sat up. "Come in." A grubby-looking Dunmer boy covered in soot stood there, looking dreadfully out-of-place in the warm firelight of Fen's room.

"I'm Yagak's apprentice," he said in a thickly accented voice. "He sent me to tell you your sword's done. He finished it early." Fen swung her feet off the bed, fully awake now.

"Thank you," she said quickly, and the apprentice disappeared. Fen stood up and took her cloak off the chair, swinging it over her shoulders. "Coming?" she asked Julan, who had abandoned _A Dance in the Fire _on the table.

"Of course I'm coming," he said at once, picking up his own cloak. "You think I'm going to miss the Nerevarine being reunited with the long-lost blade of Nerevar? Maybe you'll have an intervention or something."

"I have a feeling that's unlikely," Fen said wryly, blowing out the candle. They exited the inn quickly, pulled up their hoods, and fought their way through the ashstorm to the craftsman's hall, where Yagak was melting steel in an iron skillet over his forge.

"There's your blade," he said, jerking his head toward the table behind them. Fen turned and her breath caught in her throat. There, held carefully aloft in a wooden weapon stand, was the sword, an elegant, polished scimitar identical to Almalexia's. It was completely unrecognizable from the three rusted and scratched pieces Fen had presented to Yagak two days previously. Now it was truly a weapon, a creation of cruel steel and sharp edges that Fen could tell would kill with one blow. "Pretty good work, if I say so," Yagak grumbled from his forge. "You could throw a piece of silk over that edge and it would slice it."

"There's one thing, though," Fen said, running a finger along the flat side of the blade.

"Before you ask, I don't know why it doesn't burn," Yagak told her gruffly. "I'm a smith, not an enchanter. You want Dwemer enchantments on this thing, talk to a Dwemer."

"Here's the thing about that," Fen said, turning to face him. "The Dwemer are gone."

"I know, I know," the smith replied sharply. "They're all dead. But look...I've heard rumours of a powerful Dwemer mystic, Radac Stungnthumz, that lived in Bamz-Amschend. He's long gone, but maybe some of his writings still exist. If you can find any of them, I'll see what I can do for you." He raised one eyebrow, though it hardly made his eyes more visible. "I've also heard rumours that you've been down in those ruins a fair few times, so it shouldn't be too difficult for you." Fen didn't reply, but turned and lifted the scimitar carefully from its stand. It felt right in her hand, but something was still out-of-place. There was clearly something missing. It wasn't Trueflame – not yet.

Early the next morning, Fen sheathed the half-finished blade and she and Julan made their way back down to Bamz-Amschend. The ruins were silent and empty, as they had cleared most of the centurions on their last visit. Now, though, they paid close attention, searching every room for any sign of Radac Stungnthmz's writings.

Soon they reached one of the lower parts of the ruin, where Fen remembered finding the strange half-built construct and the jars of congealed substance. The door had been left open, and as Fen peered in, what she saw made her heart skip a beat.

There was a Dwarven Spectre inside the forge, a ghost-like creature that resembled the mer it had been thousands of years ago. He looked far different from Yagrum Bagarn, who had been disfigured and bloated by corprus. This spectre was thin and muscular-looking, with a full beard of tight black ringlets and delicately pointed ears that sat below a sharp-tipped cap. He turned at once as the door creaked open, though he did not attack.

"What're you doing down here?" the spectre said in a strange, strident voice. "Leave an old spirit to his haunts."

"You're Radac Stungnthumz," Fen said slowly, coming into the room, Julan behind her. The spectre gave her a skeptical look and nodded. "I need to speak to a Dwemer mystic. I was directed to you."

"You want to talk to a Dwemer mystic?" Radac repeated. "Ha! Look, I'm no mystic. Wasn't when I was alive, either. I'm a soldier, friend, plain and simple. Sure, I made weapons for my troops. No secret there. I'm no mystic, though." Fen frowned. She produced Nerevar's blade from where it hung at her hip.

"I need a Dwemer mystic to enchant this. It's supposed to have fire." Radac looked thoughtfully at her.

"You say you want to add fire to that blade?" he repeated, and Fen nodded. "Well, if that's all you want to do, you don't need a mystic, whelp. I can take care of that for you. We'll need some Pyroil Tar, though. Used to have some around here," he muttered, glancing around at the bottles of congealed substance scattered about. "…but that was a long time ago. You can find it in the lower caves of Norenen-dur, in the Citadel of Myn Dhrur. It's an old ruin far beneath Bamz-Amschend. I swear," he added in a mutter, "no one is happy with a simple blade that cleaves bone...always need the special effects."

"But Myn Dhrur…" Fen said slowly. "That's a Daedric name."

"Aye, it is. Deep, deep caves. An old Daedric ruin. Fool Dunmer...worshipping those beasts. I say kill 'em all!" he added sharply. "No offense to you two. Used to be a good spot for all sorts of resources, though. Of course, that was when there were any of us left who needed them! You can find the place through a cave-in at the Passage of the Walker. Take care down there, youngster. No telling what you may run into. You might discover a new way to die." Radac chuckled. "That'd be something, at least. You should be able to find some Pyroil Tar, though. Bring that back to me."

Fen and Julan left the spectre to drift aimlessly about the forge and made their way down to one of the blocked passages they had cleared earlier. It led to a rocky, half-flooded corridor, and splashed through it until they came to a stairwell that was built out of all the jagged angles and strange towers that were familiar to Daedric Ruins. The cavern was massive, its ceiling in shadow, and there were five-story towers with flames burning upon them everywhere. Far below, on the shores near the water, all manner of Daedra stalked, still very much alive despite their long exile underground. Julan made to pull his bow out, but Fen caught his arm and pulled him out of sight of the Daedra, behind a broken pillar.

"There must be hundreds of them," she muttered, glancing down at the innumerable creatures hunched upon the shore. "And I don't fancy taking on them all at once. I'll use my Amulet of Shadows. You stay out of sight." Julan agreed, and Fen slipped the Amulet over her neck and silently levitated over the prowling Daedra to the other end of the hall, where there was a tall waterfall casting a fine spray of mist into the dark ruin. Fen began to move up and down the hall, searching carefully, and she soon located a large silver jar sitting in a niche in one of the towers. There was a large inscription in Daedric on its side

"Perfect," Fen muttered, carefully taking the heavy jar under her arm. She was about to levitate back when she heard a snarl and a crash from the other end of the hall. "Shit," she hissed, and she flew as quickly as she could back to where she left Julan.

He was completely engulfed by Daedra, struggling to fight them off as they came at him in hordes. Fen tried to move down just long enough to pull him into the air with her, but the Amulet slipped off her neck as she did so and she was suddenly fully visible. There was only a split second pause before a Winged Twilight clawed her out of the air, causing the tar to slip from her grasp and roll several feet away. Fen hit the ground, hard, and the Daedra converged on her. There were blows coming from all sides – scratches, bites, punches, magic – everything. Fen barely had a chance to breathe. She found Julan's wrist in the madness and seized it, casting the most powerful shield spell she could muster over the both of them.

A webbed purple dome spread over them, and Fen cast God's Fire, sending the horde of Daedra stumbling back. The second they were distracted, Fen and Julan made a run for it, sprinting desperately for the flooded cavern, then through to the ruins. The second they got through the hole, Fen levitated the heaviest boulder there back up and lodged it into the opening to ensure that the Daedra would not follow. There was a split second, then Fen realized something.

"Shit!" she shouted, slapping a hand on her forehead. "The Pyroil tar!"

"This is it, right?" Julan asked, and he held up the silver jar, though it was now scratched and dented. Fen let out a sigh of relief.

"That's it. Thank gods." She pulled out two healing potions, handing one to Julan. "I thought I told you to stay out of sight," she said, after they had drunk and were walking back up to the forge.

"I just sneezed," Julan said defensively. "I guess they heard me."

"I'd say so," Fen replied dryly.

Radac appeared pleased when they delivered the Pyroil tar.

"Ah...that's the stuff," he said, breaking the seal around the lid and unscrewing it. A smell that reminded Fen of the Dwemer satchels leaked out. "Here, hand me that blade of yours," he said, and Fen passed Trueflame to him. Radac made a fluid gesture and they both were engulfed in a bright light. He slid his hands into the light up to his elbows, moving things around, frowning slightly. Then he extracted them and snapped his translucent fingers. The light died away and the blade was floating there, only now it was alive with the fiercest flame Fen had ever seen, lighting up the room with its pure energy. "There. There's your sword," Radac said. "Not a bad looking blade, actually. Good luck to you, youngster. Now leave this old dwarf alone. Go!" With that, Radac vanished, leaving the blade floating in his wake. Fen was silent for a time, staring at it. Then she reached out and closed her hand around the hilt.

Fen had never fought with a sword before, but the moment she curled her fingers around Trueflame's ornately carved hilt, she knew the blade was meant to be hers. It felt so natural, so incredibly _easy_…like she had been born with this scimitar in her hands.

Fen turned to face Julan, holding Trueflame aloft.

"Gods," he muttered. "That's an incredible blade."

"It is," Fen agreed, sheathing the blade. The room was instantly darker without the glow of Trueflame. "Which is why I'm interested as to what Almalexia will have to say about it."


End file.
